“A small town in the western part of the state. I’m sure you’ve never heard of it.” I added a little giggle. Now I was Giggle Girl. Just … kill me.
“That’s cool,” he said. “Where did you move to in Woodbridge?”
“Um, Silver Road?” I said, again making it a question.
His whole face suddenly changed, and he took a huge step back, as if he’d just realized I had a debilitating contagious disease. He turned away from me and returned to the counter. “I, uh, can’t do this,” he said to the secretary, who didn’t look too surprised by his behavior.
With that, he was out the door. No explanation, nothing. I stood with my mouth open. I should have been appalled. I should have considered him the rudest boy on earth. But the moment when his face changed for some reason reminded me of this morning when Colby told me about the girl in his room. So instead of anger, the icy feeling returned. I rubbed the back of my neck.
Just as I was about to contemplate finding my locker on my own, another girl, who’d been standing in the office, walked over.
“Hey. I’m Alexa Palmer.” She didn’t say it in a friendly way. More matter-of-factly. Her hair was black, straight, and shiny, with bluntly cut bangs. “I’m also in the Newcomers Club,” she continued. “I’ll be your Newcomers Club Buddy today. Even though you were Donovan’s assignment.”
Donovan. So that was his name.
“So what was his problem?” I asked, aiming my thumb in the direction Cute Boy had fled.
“Donovan? Don’t mind him. Let’s see where your first class is.” She took the schedule out of my hand. “Only AP in Math, huh?” she said, not looking at me. Come to think of it, she hadn’t looked me in the eye once yet. “I’ll be in that class with you.” Then she handed the schedule back to me and clapped her hands together once. “Okay, let’s get you to your locker and to History. I will meet you at the end of each of your classes and shepherd you to your next. I’ll sit with you at lunch. And then tomorrow you can be on your own.”
I felt like I’d just been dismissed from a business meeting. “Um, okay. Do you want to jot down the room numbers so you’ll know where to go?”
Alexa raised one eyebrow, but still didn’t look at me. “Of course not. I memorized them.”
She turned around and walked right out the door without looking back. I hurried to follow her. There was no small talk on the way to my locker or my first class. And no platitudes when she dropped me off. I wished I were confident enough to tell Alexa I could face the rest of the day on my own. The girl was clearly strange. But the idea of having someone walk me around all day and sit with me at lunch did help keep me from hyperventilating.
My morning classes went by quickly, with Alexa dutifully meeting me after each one and walking me to the next. All the classes seemed a little harder, a little more intense than the schoolwork back in my old town. I’d have to work hard to keep up. That Donovan boy was in three of my classes. I caught him looking at me once, and he immediately dropped his eyes back down.
My old school offered no advanced placement classes. This school seemed to have an AP for everything, but I was only scheduled for Math. My grades must have been good enough for me to get in, but I had a feeling AP Calculus here was an entirely different beast from Math at home.
I sighed. I had to stop doing that. Marie was right with that particular nag. My old town wasn’t home. This was.
I survived all my pre-lunch classes. When it was lunchtime, Alexa went to use the girls’ room so I waited for her, leaning against a row of lockers. Just then, a girl approached me. Her bold makeup and overhighlighted hair added up to pretty, but in a “trying too hard” kind of way. And she smelled like a Bath & Body Works had exploded all over her.
“Are you the new girl?” she asked.
“Yeah. I’m Jade Kelley.” I thought about holding my hand out, but something told me this wasn’t a “let’s be pals” introduction. It had some sort of purpose.
“Where do you live?”
She didn’t reply back with her own name, which was strange. “Here,” I answered tentatively. “I just moved to town.”
The girl heaved her shoulders with impatience. I noticed a gaggle of three other girls watching us from a distance. “No, like, where in town?”
“Silver Road.”
Her eyes widened. “Which house?”
“Number six,” I said, not liking this conversation and its one-sided feel. “The yellow one.”
My interrogator’s mouth opened, then shut wordlessly. She scurried back to her group and they all huddled in as she whispered. I only heard a few words … “new girl”… “house”… “Kayla Sloane.” Who was Kayla Sloane? And what was the big deal about my house? It certainly wasn’t the biggest in town. Did they give this third degree to every new student?
I felt a swoosh of wind and Alexa called over her shoulder, “Let’s go,” as she breezed by me. I jogged a few steps to catch up to her.
“Would you stop doing that?” I said with more annoyance in my voice than I’d normally use. But between Fruity-Smelling Girl’s questions and Alexa’s oddness, I’d just about had it.
Alexa looked at something above my head. “Stop what?”
“Walking so fast that I have to run to keep up with you.”
“Well, I’m taller than you,” she said flatly. “Longer legs.”
“Yeah, but it’s rude.”
She stopped then, her forehead creased. “Why?”
I had to explain this? Really? “Because when you’re going somewhere with someone you should walk together side by side at a comfortable pace. Not breeze by them, yelling over your shoulder, and forcing them to go faster. Especially when it’s someone’s first day and that someone is kind of nervous.” I let out a big breath.
Alexa’s face sagged. She looked like she actually felt bad. Like it just dawned on her now that what she was doing wasn’t cool. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know.”
We walked the rest of the way a little slower and I saw her take a few peeks at my feet, like she was mentally calculating speed or something.
The cafeteria had long tables in the center, and several round tables lined the perimeter. After we got our food, we grabbed two end seats at one of the long tables. I expected other people to join us, but after a few minutes it was clear that wasn’t happening. I momentarily wondered … if I wasn’t sitting with Alexa today, would she be alone at lunch? I didn’t want to ask, though, and make her feel self-conscious.
I took a tentative first bite of my lunch, Chinese chicken stir-fry with lo mein noodles, and nearly moaned. It was so good. So not the school lunch I was used to. I didn’t even mind that Alexa obviously wasn’t one for small talk. All the more time for me to shovel this awesomeness into my mouth.
But then I was full and a glance at the clock told me ten minutes remained. I felt the need to fill in the silence. “So,” I struggled to think of something to ask. “Can you tell me about the other students here?”
“Sure,” Alexa said, wiping her mouth with her napkin. She nodded toward a girl standing nearby who had long dark hair. “That’s Meghana Patel.” She looked away. “And that’s Kane Woodward, and that’s Johnny Xu, and that’s Laura Preston.” She rambled on, pointing out people here and there. But they seemed to be at random. They weren’t even people who sat together.
“Are they your friends?”
“No. They’re the top ten.”
“In what?”
Alexa simply said, “Class rank.”
Ahh. She was one of those overachievers. “Okay. Can you tell me anything about someone who isn’t your competition?”
Her eyes flicked around for a moment, then she just shrugged. Ooookay. I glanced around the cafeteria and spotted Donovan, who was sitting at one of the round tables with a group of boys. They all wore black T-shirts with band names or gamer-related logos. Donovan kept his head down and didn’t seem to be involving himself in conversation.
�
��What about him?” I asked, nonchalantly pointing him out.
Alexa peered over her shoulder, then returned her eyes to her plate. “Donovan O’Mara. Above average. Rank thirty-three.”
“No, what does he do? Besides school.”
Confused at first, Alexa thought for a moment, then said, “I’ve seen him in the art room after hours. He talks with other boys about video games. If he spent less time gaming, he could have come in at twenty-six through twenty-eight. No higher than that, though.”
I sighed. “But what’s he like? You know, his personality.” I watched as he picked apart a sandwich.
“He used to smile a lot. It looked nice.” Alexa added softly, “But he doesn’t smile anymore.”
It took all my effort to tear my eyes from him. He just made me feel so curious. I wanted to know why he was so sad.
I wanted to fix him.
The next morning, the sun in my eyes woke me up well before my alarm. I must have forgotten to pull down the shade, though I thought I’d remembered doing it.
I sat up and stretched, looking around. I still had a few boxes left to unpack, but my new room was so huge they didn’t even get in the way. I had the same furniture, the same blue bedding, the same Interpol poster on similarly colored cream walls, but everything had changed. Now I could keep a desk and my computer in here, rather than the living room, giving me more than a place just to sleep. It was a place to be. A place that was all mine and private.
I laid an outfit — jeans and a purple V-neck — on the bed, then dug through my jewelry box for something to spice it up with. Despite knowing the history and meaning behind every identifiable gemstone, I still couldn’t color coordinate. I liked the garnet pendant, but did red go with purple? I closed the lid, shrugged, and headed into the bathroom to shower. In our old house, if someone had showered right before me, I’d have nothing but cold water left. Not here, though. The water was so hot and relaxing, I almost hated to get out, and my fingers were pruned by the time I did.
I opened the door and steam trailed along as I slipped into my room, a towel wrapped around me. I returned to the clothes I’d laid on my bed when my eyes registered something. Something wrong. Out of place.
My long gold necklace with the black onyx pendant lay placed over the shirt. I hadn’t put it there. And I’d closed my jewelry box, though it now stood open atop my dresser.
I padded down the hall to Colby’s room where he was playing with his train table. I held the necklace up. “Did you take this out of my jewelry box and put it on the outfit I had on my bed?”
“Nope,” he said, smashing two trains together.
“Did Mar — Mom do it?”
He shook his head. “Nuh-uh. She’s downstairs.”
I furrowed my brow in confusion, staring at the onyx dangling from my hand. It was a good choice, actually. The color matched my purple shirt. And onyx protects against negativity. That would be helpful if I ran into that fruity-smelling girl again today.
“It must have been her,” Colby said.
“Who?”
His eyes panned the room like he was looking to see who else was there. “You know,” he whispered. “The glimmering girl.”
Goose bumps rose on my skin and I held the towel tighter. Despite the steam still flowing out of the bathroom … I wasn’t hot anymore.
“What does she look like?” I asked, thinking maybe if I prodded him for details he’d admit the girl was an imaginary friend.
He turned the toy train over and over in his hand. “She’s a big kid.”
“A teenager like me?” I clarified. “Big kid” to Colby could mean anyone older than him.
“Yeah, but she doesn’t have your hair. Hers is black.”
“What’s her name?”
He shrugged. “Dunno. She moves her mouth, but she can’t talk.”
I drove my ten-year-old clunker to school and parked it between two shiny new luxury cars. As I walked toward the open doors of the school, I wondered why Colby was doing this. He’d never lied to me before. Maybe moving and starting school was taking a toll on him. He had to have been the one to put the onyx on my bed. He had to be making up the stories about the glimmering girl. Because otherwise …
I wanted to concentrate in my classes. It was only the second day, but already the teachers had kicked it up a notch and my hand was aching from all the note taking. But I had trouble focusing. I couldn’t shake the feeling that a secret was being passed around. And it involved me.
When all eyes were on me as I walked down the hallway, I chalked it up to being the new girl. When I caught a boy staring in Science, I figured it was curiosity. When two girls whispered behind their hands in English, then looked at me in unison, I hoped for a coincidence. But when I walked into the cafeteria for lunch and heard one gasp, followed by a quick, “There she is,” I knew for sure something was up.
I got into line, quickly chose a prepackaged salad, and wandered into the seating area. I glanced around, looking for a friendly face. But everyone regarded me with a kind of hungry suspicion. A bead of sweat slipped down my back.
An outburst of laughter came from my right and I turned to see what was going on. Alexa was seated by herself, in the same spot as yesterday, a textbook open beside her tray. A tall, skinny boy stood behind her, doing some sort of robot dance with his arms. A group of girls giggled and the words “Robot Girl” floated through the air. Clearly a mean-spirited nickname for Alexa. She didn’t turn around, didn’t react in any way. But she had to know what was going on behind her. Had to hear it.
My face flushed hot with anger. I marched over to her table, glaring daggers at the boy the whole way. He stopped his dance and moved on, his fun over.
I slid into a seat across from Alexa and opened my salad. She looked up from her book. “You’re sitting with me again?” she asked. She didn’t seem disappointed, just surprised. And maybe happy. I couldn’t quite tell with her.
“Yeah, sure,” I said. Sitting with Alexa seemed like my best bet. She was apparently the only one not whispering behind my back.
I moved the salad around the container with my fork, too worked up to feel hungry. When I glanced up, I saw Fruity-Smelling Girl at a nearby table. She sat next to a guy who looked like he’d been clipped out of a hotness catalog. Tall and broad shouldered? Check. Perfectly ruffled blond hair? Check. A smile that was obviously making every girl at the table swoon? Check.
Fruity leaned in close to him and whispered something in his ear. Something that made him stop smiling. And then he looked over at me.
My eyes darted down to my plate. “What’s going on?” I asked, not even bothering to keep my voice level.
“Chemistry,” Alexa replied, looking up from her book.
“People are talking about me,” I explained. “But I don’t know why. Do you?”
Alexa eyed Fruity-Smelling Girl and Perfect Boy, who was looking at me with a mixture of sadness and interest.
“I’m not in that crowd,” she replied. “Or any crowd. I don’t get the gossip. Sorry.”
I let out a long breath. Alexa wasn’t going to be much help in finding answers, but at least I could talk to her and try to get my mind off being the sudden center of attention.
“So is that AP Chemistry?” I asked, motioning to her book with my fork.
“Yeah.”
“You’re taking two AP courses, huh?”
“I take as many as the school offers. And I’m forty points from a perfect score on the SAT.”
“Oh.” Holy canola oil. She was a genius.
“So … you still want to sit with me?” she said softly.
“What do you mean?” I asked, honestly confused.
“Now that you know what a nerd I am.”
Her voice was bitter, and that one line told stories. She’d probably put herself out there before, only to get hurt. Maybe she helped other Newcomers Club Buddies only to get shunned as soon as they latched on to more popular people.
“I
don’t care about that.” I shrugged. “I think it’s cool you’re so smart.”
“Really?” Her brow furrowed.
“Yeah,” I said, and I meant it. Alexa was a little bit different, but I liked that. She seemed honest, anyway, and what more could you want in a friend than that?
Alexa looked at me sideways. “You’re not … playing a joke on the weird girl?”
“No.” I tried to think of how I could prove it to her. “Hey, we both have seventh period free, right? Come with me to my house and I’ll show you how I’m weird.”
“I can’t,” she said. “I have too much work. I’m going to be in the school library all period.”
I nodded. “Okay, then. I’ll bring the weird to you.”
I clutched the box tightly in my hands and scanned the tables in the school library, looking for Alexa’s face. Then I felt a light tap on my shoulder, and a boy’s voice asked, “Are you Jade Kelley?”
I turned and was surprised to see Perfect Boy standing there with a cute, petite blond girl beside him. Not Fruity-Smelling Girl, thank goodness. Someone else. She gave me a small, almost-welcoming smile.
Perfect Boy towered over me, giving me the opportunity to let my eyes graze as they traveled up to meet his. He wore scuffed sneakers, faded jeans, and a Woodbridge Lacrosse windbreaker. It wasn’t really cold enough for a jacket yet, but it was probably a matter of pride to him.
I finally found my voice. “I am.”
“I’m Kane Woodward,” he said. “And this is my sister, Ellie.”
“I’m only a sophomore,” she said softly, like she wasn’t worthy of speaking to me because I was a senior.
“Very nice to meet you.” I extended a hand and smiled to put her at ease.
“Do you play any sports?” Ellie asked.
“No.” I squinted at Kane’s jacket, pretending I hadn’t already noticed it before. “So you play … lacrosse?”
The Dead and Buried Page 2
