Starlight

by Chelsea M. Campbell

  “That’s not what I mean by business. You’re my business, and this”—he makes a big show of gesturing to his outfit—“is all for you, Miss Dirty.”

  I stop in the middle of opening the car door. I stare at him. I imagine my mouth is gaping open, like in a cartoon, even though I know it’s not.

  “What?” He straightens his pocket protector and brushes off his jacket before climbing in the car.

  Miss Dirty. Great. All I need is for everyone at school to pick that one up. I think about how much I have to look forward to today. I remind myself that whatever happens, Saiph is going to make my dreams come true. I look over at him in the passenger seat as I start the car. He’s practicing snorting while he laughs.

  Yep. Today is going to be fun. Like one big party I’ll never want to forget.

  ***

  I hurry into the office, dragging Saiph with me. He keeps stopping to stare at things, like student artwork in the hall and cases full of sports trophies and anyone lingering nearby who’s as unfortunate enough as we are to have to be here early. This is another thirty minutes of my life spent in hell that I’ll never get back.

  I pull him through the office door and up to the secretary’s desk to check him in as my guest.

  “This is Saiph. He’s my friend, from… not here. He’s going to be visiting me for a while and coming to school.” I talk fast, my eyes on the principal’s open door. I have another reason for being here. One I absolutely have to get cleared up before it’s too late.

  The secretary finally looks up. She taps her pen on her desk. “Could you say that again, hon? Slowly this time?”

  “This is Saiph, uh, Orionis, my friend from…” I look at Saiph, hoping he’s got an answer. I can’t exactly tell her he fell from the sky.

  “Canada,” he says. “I’m an exchange student.” He leans against the desk, looking way too confident to be wearing a pocket protector. You wear pocket protectors because you’re afraid something might go wrong, that a pen might leak and stain your clothes. Saiph grins at the secretary like nothing in the world could ever touch him. He might have dressed up for the part of loser, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the cool kids recruit him anyway. I’ll come to school tomorrow, and they’ll all have greasy hair and be wearing big glasses.

  “He’s going to be staying with me, for…” A day? A week? A month? However long it takes to make me popular. God, I don’t even want to think about it. “For a while.” I smile at the secretary. I tell her me and Saiph are old pen-pal buddies. Then I leave the two of them to figure out the paperwork and make a beeline for the principal’s doorway.

  I knock on the open door.

  Mr. Henry, the principal, motions for me to come in. “What can I do for you, young lady?” Mr. Henry is bald, and his head is really shiny. I try not to stare at it, especially since I’m here to ask a favor.

  “I’m Adrienne Speck.” There’s a chair in front of his desk, but I don’t sit down. “I made it into the—”

  “The finals of the poetry contest. Yes.” He shuffles some papers on his desk, then picks up a pen. He’s already not listening to me. “We’re proud to have you representing us in the regionals.”

  I grip the edge of his desk and lean forward. I must look like a maniac. “Listen, you have to take me out of the contest.” I’m sure I sound like a maniac, but I don’t care. This is important.

  He looks up from his work, his forehead wrinkling.

  “Please? It’s not fair to the other entrants.”

  “Adrienne, what are you talking about?”

  I wish the door wasn’t open, because people passing through the main office might hear what I’m about to say. “I know the judges only let me in because they felt sorry for me.”

  “What?” He glares at me. He sets his pen down, really paying attention now.

  “That’s right, I know all about it. They felt sorry for me, because of what happened before break, and now… Well, it’s just not fair. I know, they probably thought it wouldn’t matter, because I’d just lose anyway, but it matters to me.”

  “I’ll have you know, I was one of the judges, and I read every one of those poems. Yours was very good. You deserved to make it.” He makes a little waving motion with his hand, like in his mind he’s already dismissed me, and picks up his pen.

  I want to scream and kick his desk. But instead, I stand there for a minute, not sure if I’m about to cry or argue with him some more. When I’m sure it’s not going to be the first one, I say, “So, you’re not withdrawing it? Because I’d really like to have it back.”

  He makes a very ugly “stop bothering me” face with his jaw clenched and his nose scrunched up. “And I’d really like for Highville High to beat out Herrington. We haven’t won a game against them in five years.”

  He means sports. Our teams must really suck if he’s stooping to beating them with some dumb poetry contest. I guess he wants all the entries he can get, or else he read my thoughts about his shiny head and is doing this for spite. It’s clear that I’m not going to get anywhere with this, so I give him a half-hearted, “Thanks anyway,” before getting out of there.

  Chapter Ten

  I have math first period. Saiph walks into class with me. I explain to the teacher, Mrs. Walker, that Saiph is my exchange-student pen pal from Canada, spending some time visiting the good ol’ U. S. of A. I tell her Saiph is selfish and anti-Canadian, because he didn’t bring me any maple syrup, the kind that comes in a bottle shaped like a maple leaf. She didn’t get it.

  I take my usual seat in the front corner of the room. It’s close to the door, so I can get out of here almost as soon as the bell rings. Saiph pulls the next desk over towards mine. Only he doesn’t just bring it close, he shoves it right up against my desk, so that they’re touching.

  “You don’t have to do that,” I whisper.

  He ignores me and sits down, with his back straight and his hands folded in front of him. His eyebrows scrunch together, and he looks very serious, like he’s spent his whole life preparing for this one hour of algebra.

  I whip out my notebook as Mrs. Walker starts lecturing. I think after high school is over, I’ll vote to have the letters x and y taken out of the alphabet, because by then I’ll be completely sick of them.

  Mrs. Walker writes a problem on the board. “Now, class, if we know that y equals six, who can solve for x?”

  I do the work in my notes. This is an easy one. She’s making it so easy, and nobody gets it. They just sit there with glazed looks in their eyes. Which I can kind of understand, because math is not my favorite thing to do at eight in the morning.

  Saiph leans in really close, looking over my shoulder at my paper. They must not have personal space where he’s from.

  “Anyone?” Mrs. Walker folds her arms and looks out at the class. You can tell she’s getting frustrated. This always happens. But I’m certainly not going to raise my hand. It’s bad enough that people assume I’m smart, just because I’m a dork. They don’t have to know it’s true.

  “Teacher!” Saiph’s hand shoots up. He says “Teacher” in a really whiny voice. “Teacher, teacher!”

  “Yes?” Mrs. Walker smiles a little. I bet she’s thinking of moving to Canada, where kids actually understand math.

  “Adrienne has the answer!” He points at my notes as he says it.

  Everyone turns to look at me. I can feel my cheeks go red. My heart feels like it’s stopped beating. “It’s five,” I manage to choke out. “X equals five.”

  “Very good.” Mrs. Walker’s face goes all bright and happy. She looks like a spinster aunt who just had a secret admirer send her a dozen roses, that’s how relieved she looks.

  She goes to draw another problem on the board, and I glare at Saiph. I speak through clenched teeth. “I thought I told you not to talk?”

  “But you had the answer,” he whispers. “You shouldn’t be ashamed of that.” He scoots a little closer to me, so that he’s only half sitting in his chair. Som
e of his greasy blond hair brushes against my cheek.

  Ick. “Saiph, I don’t know how it is up in Canada, but here there’s such a thing as too close. People are going to get the wrong idea.”

  “Yeah, that you don’t know the answers.”

  “Are you trying to get me killed? You’re supposed to be…” I can’t bring myself to say “making me popular,” in case somebody else hears. I settle for, “…helping me out. Not making everyone hate me for being a know-it-all.”

  “There’s a difference between being a ‘know-it-all’ and pretending you’re stupid—it’s called not caring what anybody else thinks. You should try it sometime. And maybe if you weren’t too afraid to raise your hand on your own once in a while, I wouldn’t have to interfere.” He grins at me as he says it. Next he’ll be rubbing his hands together and cackling like a supervillain.

  This is not what I bargained for. Mrs. Walker doesn’t even have a chance to ask if anybody has the next answer before Saiph’s hand is up again. “Teacher!”

  I can tell everyone in the room wants to smack him. Luckily, I’m close enough to get first dibs.

  “Adrienne knows this one. I can tell.”

  I haven’t even done the problem. Mrs. Walker beams at me. Uh-oh. I can see where this is going. “Adrienne?”

  I could just make up a wrong answer, and then maybe Saiph would shut up. And even if he didn’t, at least nobody else would know that I understand this stuff. I wouldn’t stand out—I’d look just like everybody else.

  But Mrs. Walker is smiling so hard at me, with her hands clasped in front of her. Do I tell the spinster aunt that her secret admirer is really a stalker, ripping away any hope she has for the future, or do I give her a diamond ring and ask her to marry me?

  Okay, forget that metaphor. But you know what I mean.

  I open my mouth, all set to break her little math-loving heart, but I can’t do it. I give her what she wants instead. “The answer is fifty.”

  She tilts her head back, staring up at the ceiling, with her hands still clasped. I think she mouths, “Thank you, God.”

  If there is a God, I’m pretty sure he’s not the one who sent me Saiph.

  I close my notebook, so Saiph can’t see my work and whether or not I have the answers. “Listen, star boy, just sit there and be quiet.”

  “Shh!” He puts his finger over his lips and scowls at me. “Teacher’s talking.”

  I roll my eyes at him, but he’s too busy paying attention in class to notice.

  Mrs. Walker is watching both of us as she writes out the next problem. I reach out and grab Saiph’s hand just as he’s about to raise it.

  “Teacher!” he whines, struggling against me. “Adrienne knows everything there is to know about this problem! I can feel the algebra waves just flowing out of her brain!”

  Most of the kids laugh. A few of them are staring, probably wondering if it’s safe to be in the same room with this freak.

  Saiph breaks free from my grip and climbs onto his desk. He clamps one hand over his heart, pointing a finger at me with the other. “My friends, this girl has the math in her. Never have I seen such super math powers before. This girl”—he pauses for effect—“has got the answers.”

  Mrs. Walker isn’t smiling now, she’s standing up at the front of the room, looking like she isn’t sure if she should tell him to get down or call school security.

  Saiph hops down from his desk, drops to his knees, and gestures to me with both arms, like he’s Vanna White and I’m one of the letters on Wheel of Fortune.

  “Yes, Adrienne?” Mrs. Walker’s voice wavers a little. She’s not sure what’s going on anymore.

  I feel for her, having to put up with this lunatic interrupting her class. My voice comes out quiet. It’s not only my cheeks that are red now, but my ears, too. “Sixty-five point three.”

  “Very good.” She goes back to the board. The rest of the class stops looking at me and returns to staring blankly at their notes. Like it’s no big deal that I knew the answer. Or maybe they’re just afraid of what Saiph will do next.

  My heart takes one tentative beat, testing to see if it’s okay to live again.

  You can tell, when Mrs. Walker puts up the next problem, that she’s scared to even ask if anybody knows it. Saiph’s eyes shift towards me in a sneaky, sideways glance.

  I see his arm twitch. But before he can raise his hand, I’ve got mine up. The whole class breathes a collective sigh of relief.

  For once, they’re actually glad that I know the answers.

  Chapter Eleven

  I pretend I’m not hungry at lunch. If I do this every day, I wonder how long it’ll take before Saiph gets suspicious. Obviously, based on my wish, I’m not going to win any popularity contests any time soon. No one’s waiting in line or beating down my door for my attention. But that doesn’t have to mean I have absolutely no friends whatsoever. Saiph might not realize there’s no one who will even tolerate my presence at their lunch table for the ten minutes it takes me to eat, even if I’m quiet and don’t talk to anybody or look interested in their conversation. Saiph has no way to know exactly how much of a loser I am, and I intend to keep it that way.

  Today, I’m taking him on a tour of the school. I brought a bag lunch, and I crunch on some carrot sticks as we walk through the halls. I brought extra for Saiph, but he’s too enthralled by everything that is high school to bother eating.

  He stops in front of a poster for the dance that’s coming up. The one I want to go to.

  Correction. The one I am going to. With a date, no less.

  Why is it easier to believe that Saiph’s really a star, with magic bikini powers and everything, than that I’m actually going to the dance with somebody? Maybe because it’s going to take a lot more than bikini powers to convince anyone they won’t start puking up their lunch if they see me in a dress.

  Saiph is smiling at the poster. “This is it? The big winter dance?”

  “That would be why it says Winter Dance in big sparkly bubble letters.”

  He ignores my sarcasm and rubs his hands together, a devious smile sliding over his face.

  The poster has pictures from last year’s event pasted on it. Of course, I wasn’t around for that one. I hadn’t moved here yet, though I doubt that would have made any difference. I missed out on enough dances at my old school to know better.

  Two of the pictures are of Nichole. She’s dancing with a different guy in each one. One of them is Jason Thomas. He’s tall and has short dark hair, and, yes, technically he’s part of Nichole’s crowd, or at least the popular bunch, but I like to think maybe he didn’t laugh when I read my poem. Like maybe he saw through whatever everybody else saw, whatever made them all start laughing, and got what I really meant by it. Sometimes Jason comes by Flame Burger. He always asks me how it’s going, and he never makes fun of me like Nichole does. He even calls me Adrienne, instead of Speck.

  Saiph pokes me in the ribs. “What are you staring at?”

  “Nothing.” I say that a little too quickly. I look away from Jason’s picture. I wish I didn’t feel a little surge of jealousy, seeing him dancing with Nichole like that.

  I know I’m kidding myself. Jason probably laughed just as hard as anyone else. I bet he only calls me Adrienne because it says it on my name tag. He probably doesn’t even know my last name. A daydream is one thing. The reality is, there isn’t a single guy in this school who wouldn’t go to the dance with Nichole if she asked him. It goes against human nature for them to say no, that’s all, just like it goes against human nature for anyone to want to go with me.

  Let’s face it, if you’re reading the Choose Your Own Adventure book of life, and you get to the page that says, “If you choose to go to the dance with Nichole, turn to page one twenty-three,” and, “If you choose to go to the dance with Adrienne, you will find instant death—just close the book and walk away now,” which one are you going to pick? It’s not a hard decision.

  I pull my a
ttention away from the poster. Maybe I shouldn’t get my hopes up, even if Saiph promised to grant my wishes. I look up and down the hall, noticing Saiph’s moved on without me. While I was busy staring at the dance poster, he wandered over to a piece of paper on the wall, under a big sign that says, Auditions Today!

  And he’s writing something on it.

  “Hey!” I run over to him and yank his arm back, making him draw a big slash across the paper.

  Saiph frowns at the mark, then at me, then back at it, like he’s wondering how he’s ever going to fix it. Or maybe he’s worried he won’t be able to fix me. “You’re playing the lead, remember? How are you going to do that if you don’t even try out?”

  “Did your fall to Earth rattle your brain? You don’t really think this is going to work, do you? There’s, like, zero chance in hell that I’m going to get the lead, even if I do try out. And in case you haven’t noticed, this is high school. It might as well be hell.”

  Saiph is unfazed by my spiel. He raises one eyebrow at me, as if he’s sure one of us is crazy here and he knows it’s not him. “You told your mother you got the lead, remember?”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t. She’ll get over it.” Someday.

  Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I like lying to my mom—that’s why I’m keeping a teenage boy claiming to be from space with magical powers stashed up in the attic—but come on. If she doesn’t get that there’s no way I, her darling-but-awkward, clumsy, and less-than-blessed-in-the-looks-department daughter could ever even hope to get a speaking part in the play, let alone the lead, then she’s insane and any promises I made to her aren’t binding.

  Saiph scratches out my name where I made him make a mistake. He writes it again on the line underneath, and I hardly recognize it. He writes out Adrienne Speck like she’s somebody who matters. Like she’s the kind of girl whose name has to be written in letters so big, they want to reach out and take up an extra line. The A looks brave, like it’s just waiting for somebody to try and tell it it doesn’t belong on this sign-up sheet. The S towers over the line, making the word Speck seem very un-speck-like.