Thirst No. 4

by Christopher Pike

  “Clair Hilrey,” Alice replied. “Funny you should ask. She was one person I had already decided should come to my party.”

  “Why?”

  “She knows everybody. She’s probably the most popular girl on campus. She’s gorgeous, isn’t she?”

  Jessica had already taken a dislike to her. It had been a dream of Jessica’s, since her freshman year, that she might be nominated homecoming queen. Back at Mesa, she would have had an excellent chance. Here it already looked as if the odds were stacked against her. She shrugged, started up the hallway again. “She’s all right.”

  Jessica had been at her locker half an hour earlier to deposit her notebook before checking in with her senior counselor. The man had seemed nice enough, but sort of slow and boring, and she couldn’t remember his name any more than she could now remember her locker combination. Stopping in front of the locker, she searched her pockets for the slip of paper with the three magic numbers.

  “Whoever you put on your list,” she said, finding the paper and twisting the steel dial, “be sure to invite that new guy you’re seeing. What’s his name, Kent?”

  Alice looked doubtful. “Clark. I don’t know if he’d come. He doesn’t like to be around a lot of people.”

  The dial felt as if it had gum stuck under it. This school was gross. “Where does he take you when you two go out, the desert?”

  Alice smiled briefly. “We don’t really go out. He just comes over.” She added quickly, almost nervously, “He’s an incredible artist. He’s helped me so much with my painting.”

  Jessica paused, studying her. The topic of Clark disturbed Alice, and Jessica wondered why. More than that, she was concerned. She had always felt the urge to take care of Alice. Perhaps because Alice had lost both her parents when she was only ten.

  “I’ll have to meet him someday,” she said finally, brushing a curl of hair from Alice’s face. The younger girl nodded, kissed Jessica quickly on the cheek, and began to back away.

  “I’m glad you had a happy vacation. I’m even more glad you’re home! Catch you later, OK?”

  “At lunch. Where should we meet?”

  Alice had already begun to slip into the crowd. “I’ll find you!” she called.

  After waving a quick farewell, Jessica turned and opened her locker and discovered that the light blue cashmere sweater her mother had bought for her in Switzerland for two hundred francs was being spotted with somebody’s grape juice. The juice was leaking from a soggy brown-paper lunch bag perched on top of a thick notebook that didn’t belong to her and which she felt by all rights did not belong in her locker.

  “Damn,” she whispered, hastily pulling the bag and the notebook out of the locker and dumping them on the ground. Her face fell as she unfolded her prize gift and held it up. She had known it was to be in the high nineties today; she’d only brought the sweater to show off to her friends. Now it had a big stain over the heart area. It was dark enough to be a bloodstain. Suddenly she wished she had never gotten on that plane in Zurich.

  “Excuse me, I think these are mine,” somebody said from below her. There was a guy crouched down at her feet, picking up the notebook and lunch bag. When he had his things in hand, he glanced up, clearing his throat. “Are we sharing the same locker?”

  Jessica let her sweater down and sighed. “You mean you don’t even get your own locker in this school? What kind of place is this? I had my own locker in kindergarten.”

  The guy stood, frowning as he noticed the juice dripping from his bag. “I guess it does take some getting used to. But I don’t think I’ll be getting in your way much. I only keep my books in my locker.”

  “And your lunch.”

  The fellow noticed her sweater and did a quick double take, from it to his bag. “Oh, no, did my grape juice leak on your sweater?”

  “Somebody’s grape juice did.”

  He grimaced. “I’m sorry, I really am. Do you think the stain will come out?”

  “I’ll probably have to cut it out.”

  “That’s terrible.” He reached a hand into the bag. “It’s all my fault. Boy, can I make it up to you? Could I buy you a new one?”

  “Not around here.”

  “Well, how much did it cost? I could pay you for it at least.”

  “Two hundred Swiss francs.”

  “How much is that?”

  “I don’t know.” Jessica leaned an elbow on the wall of lockers, rested her head in her hand, blood pounding behind her temples. What a lousy way to start the day, the whole school year for that matter. “I can’t remember.”

  The guy stood staring at her for a moment. “I really am sorry,” he repeated.

  Jessica closed her eyes briefly, taking a deep breath, getting ahold of herself. She was making a mountain out of a molehill. Fatigue often made her overreact. Chances were the dry cleaners could get the stain out. And if they didn’t, they didn’t. Her bedroom closet was overflowing with clothes. When she thought about it, she realized she had little right to blame this guy. After all, she was invading his territory. He had probably had this locker since he was a freshman.

  She straightened up, letting the sweater dangle by her side, out of the way. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I have another one at home just like it.” She offered him her hand, lightening her tone. “My name’s Jessica Hart. I’m a Mesa High refugee.”

  The guy shook her hand. “I’m Michael Olson.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Michael.” She wondered if this was their first meeting. She could have sworn she had seen him before. “Are you a senior?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So am I.”

  “I thought so. Did you just get here? I didn’t see you earlier this week.”

  “Yeah, my family’s vacation ran a few days too long.”

  Michael nodded, looking her straight in the face, and as he did, Jessica realized that, besides seeming familiar, he was rather attractive. He had thick black hair and eyebrows, pleasant friendly features. Yet it was his eyes that sparked her interest. There was an extraordinary alertness and intelligence in them, a sharpness she had never seen before in anyone her age. But perhaps she was imagining it. For all she knew, he could be the local druggie, high on something.

  But he seems nice enough.

  “I bet you were in Switzerland,” he said.

  She laughed. “How did you guess?”

  “Your accent.” He glanced about. “I suppose this place looks old to you after Mesa.”

  She nodded. “And crowded. And hot. We had airconditioning.”

  “Some of our rooms are cooled. The gym is. We take our basketball very seriously here at Tabb.”

  Jessica brightened. “Oh, now I know who you are! You’re on the basketball team. I saw you playing last year. You killed us, didn’t you?”

  Michael shrugged. “It was close most of the way.”

  “Yeah, right, all through warm-up.”

  “Well, you guys were never very nice to our football team. What did we lose to you, the last nine in a row?”

  “The last ten. And you know what’s worse? Practically our whole varsity was transferred to Sanders High.”

  “I guess we couldn’t expect to get beauty and brawn both.”

  Did he just compliment me? It sounded like a compliment.

  Jessica didn’t take compliments well. To simply accept them, she felt, was to acknowledge that her looks were important to her, and she always thought that was the same as saying to the world that she was superficial. On the other hand, she did love to be complimented. She was nuts, and she knew it.

  She laughed again. “Before the football season’s over, I know you’re going to think Tabb got the raw end of the deal.”

  “I hope not,” he muttered, lowering his head, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, and wiping up the few remaining drops of juice from the locker. “I’m going to pay you for that sweater no matter what you say. What’s a Swiss franc in U.S. money these days?”

>   “One and a half pennies. Forget about it, really. I have parents who can’t spend enough on their darling daughter.”

  “It must be nice. Did you enjoy Switzerland?”

  “Yeah. And the Greek islands. It was neat floating on a raft in the Mediterranean. The Vatican was far-out, too.”

  He nodded, repeated himself. “It must be nice.” Then he began to back up. “Well, I have to go. I hope you like Tabb. I’m sure you will. If you need help finding your way around, just let me know.”

  “Thanks, Michael. See you later.”

  “Sure.”

  Michael was gone no more than ten seconds when Sara Cantrell appeared. It had been Sara who had been kind enough to pick Jessica and her parents up at the airport at three that morning. Sara had grumbled about it, naturally, but that was to be expected, and wasn’t to be taken seriously. The two of them went back to the beginnings of time; they had taught each other to talk. Or rather, Jessica had learned to talk, and Sara had learned to make astute observations. Sara had a biting wit and was usually hungry for potential victims. Tabb High did not yet know what it had inherited. It would know soon, though.

  “Hello, Jessie, can’t believe you dragged yourself in today. God, you look wasted. You should go home and put your face back under a pillow.”

  Jessica yawned. “I didn’t even go to bed. I was too busy unpacking. What are you doing here? When you dropped us off at home, you said you were taking the day off.”

  “I was until I remembered my mom wasn’t working today. She would just drive me nuts. Hey, do you know who that guy you were talking to is?”

  “Michael Olson.”

  “Yeah. I hear he’s the smartest guy in the school. Better get on good terms with him. You’re taking chemistry, and I hear our young Olson wrote the lab manual they use here.”

  “Are you serious? I thought he looked clever.” Then she winced. “Did you really sign me up for chemistry?”

  “You told me to.”

  “My dad told you to. What do I need chemistry for?”

  “So you can get into Stanford and find a smart young man to marry who’ll give you smart little kids to play with in a big stupid house.”

  Jessica groaned. “I didn’t know that’s why I was taking chemistry.”

  Sara pointed to her sweater. “Did your ears explode while going up in the plane or what? That looks like a bloodstain.”

  “I didn’t get it on the trip. It’s something old. I got it at Penney’s.”

  Sara grabbed the tag. “Is Penney’s charging us in francs these days?”

  Jessica pulled the sweater away and shut it in the locker. “Don’t hassle me, all right? I’m still getting acclimated.” She wiped at the grape juice on her hands. “Last night you said we share first period. What class is it? I lost my schedule already.”

  Sara wrinkled her nose. She could do a lot with her nose. She had the same control over it that most people had over their mouths. This did not mean, however, that it was an unusually large nose. Sara was cute. By her own estimation—and Sara could be as ruthless on herself as she was on everybody else—she rated an eight on a scale of one to fourteen. In other words, she was slightly above average. She had rust-colored hair, cut straight above her shoulders, hazel eyes, and a slightly orange tan that somehow got deeper in the winter. Because she frequently wore orange tops and pants to complement her coloring, Jessica told her she looked like Halloween.

  “Political science,” Sara said. “And we’ve got this real liberal ex-vet for a teacher. He was in Vietnam and slaughtered little babies, and now he wants us selling the communists hydrogen bombs so he can have a clear conscience.”

  “He sounds interesting.” Jessica didn’t believe a word of it. “Come on, let’s get there before the bell rings. I’m already four days late.”

  The teacher’s name was Mr. Bark, and Sara hadn’t been totally off base in her analysis. The first thing the man did when they were all seated was dim the lights and put on a videotape of a nuclear attack. The footage was from the big TV movie The Day After. They watched a solid ten minutes of bombs exploding, forests burning, and people vaporizing. When the lights were turned back on, Jessica discovered she had a headache. World War III always depressed her. Plus she wasn’t wearing her glasses as she was supposed to; watching the show had strained her eyes. Sitting to her right, Sara had put her head down and nodded off. Jessica poked her lightly, without effect. Sara continued to snore softly.

  “I hope my purpose in showing this movie is clear,” Mr. Bark began, leaning his butt on the edge of his desk. “We can talk on and on about how incredibly destructive nuclear weapons are, but I think what we have just seen creates an image of horror that will stay with us a long time, and will remind us that above all else we can’t allow the political tensions of the world to reach the point where pushing the button becomes a viable alternative.”

  If Sara hadn’t been lying about his being a vet, then Mr. Bark hid it well. He didn’t look like someone who had seen battle. In fact, he looked remarkably like a plump, balding middle-aged man who had taught high school political science all his life. He had frumpy gray slacks, black-rimmed glasses, and an itch on his inner left thigh that he obviously couldn’t wait to scratch.

  Jessica poked her friend again. Sara turned her head in the other direction and made a low snorting sound.

  “One Trident submarine,” Mr. Bark continued, raising one finger in the air for emphasis, striding down the center of the class, “has the capacity to destroy two hundred Soviet cities. Think about it. And think what would happen if the captain of a Trident sub should go off half-cocked and decide to make a place in history for himself, or to put an end to all history. Now I know most of you believe that the fail-safe device the president has near him at all times controls—”

  We should have had someone else pick us up at the airport.

  Mr. Bark paused in midstride, suddenly realizing he didn’t have Sara’s full attention. Impatience creased his wide fleshy forehead. He moved to where he stood above her.

  “She had a late night,” Jessica said.

  Mr. Bark frowned. “You’re the new girl? Jessica Hart?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you’re a friend of Sara’s?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Would you wake her, please?”

  “I’ll try.” Jessica leaned close to Sara’s head, hearing scattered giggles from the rest of the class. Putting her hand on the back of Sara’s neck, she whispered in her ear, “You are making fools of both of us. If you don’t wake up this second, I am going to pinch you.”

  Sara wasn’t listening. Jessica pinched her. Sara sat up with a bolt. “Holy Moses,” she gasped. Then she saw the stares, the smirks. Unfazed, she calmly leaned back in her chair and picked up her pen as if to take notes, saying, “Could you please repeat the question, Mr. Bark?”

  “I didn’t ask a question, Sara.”

  Sara stifled a yawn. “Good.”

  “But I’ll ask one now. Were you awake through any of the movie?”

  “I got the highlights.”

  “I’m glad. Tell me, what was your gut reaction while watching the bombs explode?”

  Sara smiled slowly. “I thought it was neat.”

  Mr. Bark shook his head. “You might think you are being funny, but I can assure you that you are—”

  “No, no,” Sara interrupted. “I’m telling you exactly how I felt. The whole time I was watching it, before I nodded off, I was thinking, Wow.”

  Mr. Bark grinned in spite of himself. “Granted, Sara, the visual effects were outstanding. But didn’t the wholesale destruction of our civilization upset you?”

  “No.”

  “Come on, be serious. I had girls crying when I showed this movie in fifth period yesterday.”

  “Mr. Bark,” Sara replied with a straight face, “when I was watching that part where the bomb exploded outside that university, I honestly thought to myself, ‘Why, those lucky
kids. They won’t have to go to school anymore.”

  The class burst out laughing. Mr. Bark finally gave up. He tried to dig up more heartfelt testimonials from the less bizarre minded, and while he did so, Jessica noticed a handsome blond fellow sitting in the corner. She had to fight not to stare. What kind of place was this Tabb? First there was Clair Hilrey, who belonged in Playboy, and now there was this hunk. It was a wonder that they couldn’t put together a halfway decent football team with all these great genes floating around. She poked Sara again.

  “Who’s that in the corner?” she whispered.

  “The football quarterback,” Sara whispered back.

  “What’s his name?”

  “He hasn’t got one. But his jersey number is sixteen.”

  “Tell me, dammit.”

  “William Skater, but I call him Bill. Pretty pretty, huh?”

  “Amazing. Do you know if he has a girlfriend?”

  “I’ve seen him hanging out with this cheerleader named Clair.”

  “God, I hate this school.”

  “Miss Hart?” Mr. Bark called.

  “Yes, sir?”

  He wanted to know about her feelings on radiation, and of course, she told him she thought it was just awful stuff. When the class was over, Jessica did her best to catch Bill’s eye, but he wasn’t looking.

  I’ve been here less than two hours. I can’t be getting a crush on someone already.

  She ditched Sara and trailed Bill halfway across campus. He had a great ass.

  The following period was the dread chemistry, and the teacher’s lecture on molecular reactions proved far harder to absorb than Mr. Bark’s on atomic explosions. This was definitely one class she wouldn’t be able to BS her way through.

  Toward the middle of the period, they started on the first lab of the year. Jessica ended up with a quiet Hispanic girl named Maria Gonzales for a partner. They hardly had a chance to talk, but she struck Jessica as the serious type. Jessica just hoped she was smart and took excellent notes. She wondered if Michael Olson really was a wizard at science. It would be asking too much, she supposed, to hope William Skater was.