My phone buzzed again as Matt went the opposite way. I had just noticed that the rest of his group was lagging behind us-- no Jenna, though. My suspicions that they were snooping on the new kid were confirmed when I saw one of the guys high-five Matt.
“Abigail?” I looked up. As I was passing the main office a man raised his hand in a half wave. He looked as though he was wearing a black toupee which matched the dark slacks and vest he was sporting. A colorful tie was the only pop of color in his attire. Those were all telltale signs that he was the principal.
“Hi, um, Sir.” I stopped right next to him, sticking out my hand.
“Principal Medina.” He shook my hand warmly and beamed at me. “Welcome to Margaret Fielder High.”
A bell rang somewhere in the distance, signaling the start of classes. Late on my first day.
“Don’t worry about that.” He signaled for me to enter the office. “I’ll escort you to your first class.”
I followed him through a maze of desks to a back office, passing a bored-looking girl in front of a microphone. She was reading the announcements in a flat voice.
“Good morning, Emperor Tamarins.” She paused briefly to give me the once-over.
“What’s an emperor tamarin?” I whispered to the principal.
He chuckled. “A species of monkey that lives in dense Amazon forests. Goofy looking things really. But they are our mascot, so we love them”
I shut the door behind me as he gestured for me to take a seat right in front. “I won’t take up too much time on your first day. Your dad called me this morning to apologize for not being here. Busy man, working for Flametech, so we give him a pass.”
I made a mental note to look up what Flametech was.
The principal slid a folder towards me. “That’s just some generic info on our school here, and everything you need to know to have a stellar school year.”
I bit my tongue, literally. I could taste the blood in my mouth, a reminder that I was real and that this school year would be anything but stellar.
Principal Medina was looking down, scribbling something on a sheet of yellow paper. “That’s for you to take to your first class for being late.” His phone rang. “Ah. I must take this. Did you want to wait so I can walk you?”
“No, that’s okay. Thank you.” I might have been out of high school for almost six years, but I knew that having a principal escort you was basically a death wish for coolness. Poor choice of words, Abigail. I shook my head.
“Everything okay?” He lowered his eyebrows at me.
“Everything’s fine, thank you.” I needed to stop acting so jittery or I’d start drawing attention to myself.
“We’ll touch base again soon.” He flashed me a smile and gestured towards his door, which was decorated with pictures of some sort of team grinning around a trophy. He was giving me the okay to leave. “Oh, and, Abigail?”
I turned to face him, one foot already out the door.
“Our school is happy to have you here.”
If only you knew. I gave him a polite nod and made my way towards homeroom.
Margaret Felder High appeared to be a private school of some sort which meant smaller classes meant fewer suspects to focus on.
I took a deep breath in as I walked on. The school was clean. Someone had recently mopped. I could smell hints of lemon mixed with bleach. Rows and rows of faded blue lockers were everywhere I turned. I found mine on the second floor, right outside of my homeroom door--which was now shut tight.
There was nothing worse than walking into the wrong class on your first day. Unless, of course, you were walking into the wrong class late, which I double-checked my schedule to make sure I wasn’t doing. There were no new messages on my phone, meaning I was alone on this one.
I took a deep breath and tapped twice on the door.
A moment later there was a shuffle of feet, and the door swung open to reveal my homeroom teacher, easily identifiable thanks to Matt’s rather rude description.
“You must be Abigail,” she excitedly exclaimed, putting a sweaty hand on my shoulder and guiding me into the room, which was completely silent.
“Class.” She pivoted me so that I was standing at the front of the classroom. About twenty sets of eyes peered back at me. “This is Abigail.”
I raised a hand and waved down the rows, not wanting to leave anyone out. “Hi, everyone,” I said meekly. For the first time, I recognized my voice as being someone’s other than my own. It was more high-pitched, young and naive as if untouched and undaunted by the anger of the world. It also may have been the nerves of addressing a new class.
One or two people muttered “Hi” back as my eyes darted around the room, already searching for the seat that would be mine. If I wanted to stay ahead of the game, I’d have to get really good at calculating my next move, which started right now.
Great. There was only one open spot. It was the second desk in the first row, right next to the girl who had beeped at me in the parking lot. Her facial expression gave away nothing as she stared at me briefly before looking down to scribble something forcibly in her notebook.
Was she adding me to her hit list already? I had found the shooter and I was simultaneously the reason for the shooting. Game over. We can all go home now.
Get a grip, Abigail. It’s day one. I turned my attention to Mrs. Kaiser instead. She was wearing a flowy skirt with a loose-fitting white blouse tucked in it. Her hands were already back on my shoulder, guiding me to my seat as if I couldn’t be trusted not to run out the door and back to wherever I came from.
“I know it’s a little nerve-wracking having you say something in front of everyone, so I’ll let you talk a little bit about yourself from your seat once you get situated. And then we’ll let the class ask you a few questions as fun icebreaker.”
Fun? This was exactly what I didn’t want to do.
Just for a moment, I thought of what it would be like to come completely clean. “Hi, everyone. I’m 24. I’m dead. The last thing I was doing was drinking my boyfriend sorrows away before I woke up in some fucked up Christmas card with a room full of fish and more doors than you’d find in a funhouse.” Might as well put the loony bin on speed dial right away. “Also my boobs are a size smaller, my butt is a size bigger, and I no longer have a forehead wrinkle. Isn’t that something?” I would throw my head back and laugh as the class would whisper all around me. Then, bam, I’d hit them with the truth. “Oh, here’s the kicker. One of you is going to shoot up the school in three months, but if you could not do that, that’d be great. I did have a nice life going for me that I’d like to get back to.” I knew deep down that wasn’t a possibility, however. The judge made it fairly clear that my time as Dylan was over and whoever was the original Abigail had also moved on. It was enough to make my head start pounding. I touched my fingers to my temples, massaging them lightly.
“Is something wrong with her, Mrs. Kaiser?” a voice from the back of the classroom asked, followed by a few snickers. Shit. What did I miss?
“Abigail?” Mrs. Kaiser was back by my desk, leaning forward. A button right in the middle of her chest had come undone, giving a partial view of her bra underneath. “You can begin your introduction.”
My hands had somehow taken the notebook out of my backpack, as if driven by a motor while I had zoned out. Surprisingly, it opened easily for the first time. I was about to find out what secrets it held. My eyes scanned the pages. I only had three seconds before the class again thought I was off my rocker.
I began to talk. “I’m Abigail. My family moved here over the summer from the San Vanderino Valley in California. Say that ten times fast.” I smiled at the class. A few people repeated like I asked. Thank God for those good sports. “My dad just took a job at Flametech,” I continued.
“Good! Maybe he can turn those shithole arcades around,” a voice from right behind me said.
“Language, Scott,” Mrs. Kaiser scolded.
That was it for notes
in my book. The rest of the pages were staring blankly back at me. No explanation of what Flametech was. The rest was on me. It was time to create my identity.
“Favorite subject?” Mrs. Kaiser asked. I knew that she would be my US Government teacher as well, but I very well couldn’t be a teacher’s pet on the first day.
“English,” I found myself saying without even a second thought. It was a stark contrast to art, which had long been my favorite class.
“Anyone else want to ask a question?” Mrs. Kaiser looked around the room expectantly, but no one spoke up. Half the class wasn’t even looking in my general direction.
“We’ll we’re glad you’re here.” Mrs. Kaiser looked as though she wanted to say more, but the bell rang, putting an end to any more questions.
Students were already standing up. The familiar symphony of books being slammed shut and backpacks being zipped up filled my ears. This was really happening. I was back in high school.
I zeroed in on the teacher’s whiteboard as all around me students filed out.
A ‘Countdown to Graduation’ was scribbled in the corner of the board in red marker. It had 242 days written in big bold letters. Someone had drawn a sketch of what I guessed was the emperor tamarin mascot doing a backflip. Below it was the poorly erased aftermath of a drawing of male genitalia. Keep it classy, tamarins.
There might be 242 days till graduation, but I knew it would be only 90 until people would die. I shivered.
Mrs. Kaiser was staring at me from behind her desk. I looked around. The classroom was empty. “Do you need help finding your next class?”
I shook my head. “I’ll be okay,” I told her. It was only one of many lies I knew I’d be telling. I would never be okay again.
I made it to the door and turned around. “Mrs. Kaiser?”
“Hmm?” she asked, looking up from the book she had open on her desk.
“Your button.” I pointed to her shirt before joining the rest of the kids in the hallway. If I didn’t stop a shooting from happening at the school, at least I could potentially stop kids from getting their hands on more ammo to make Mrs. Kaiser’s life hell.
“Hey, new girl!” someone yelled from the end of the hallway. The hallways were packed, making it hard to maneuver. I forgot just how notorious high schoolers were for stopping right in the middle of the hallway to unload the day’s gossip on their friends. They also apparently loved to do each other’s hair too, as the group in front of me was doing.
“Be honest. Would dreads make me look dirty?” I heard a snippet of conversation as I careened my neck around, trying to find whoever called out to me.
I finished squeezing my way through the crowd and found the voice.
It was one of Matt’s friends from earlier. He was ridiculously tall as well, easily looming over everyone in the hallway as he zigzagged towards me. He was covered in just as many medals as Matt, if not more. I didn’t know his name, but he was pretty easy on the eyes. As if right on cue, he blew a dark strand of hair out of his face; the rest was perfectly slicked back. After a beat, Matt and a few other friends appeared behind him. They didn’t have his cutting-across-hallway-traffic skills or his height to spot me in the crowd.
“Hi.” I stuck my hand out to shake his hand.
“She likes shaking hands,” Matt announced to the group. At least someone could predict my behavior while I was still learning who I was.
“Darrington.” He tapped his chest twice in a way that was almost primal. In hindsight, he was probably just trying to draw my attention to his medals like Matt had done.
I repeated the behavior, but more gently, “Abigail,” I said.
“What’s your next class?” a blonde girl, roughly the same height as me with hair braided down her back, asked. I couldn’t help but notice that she was smacking her gum as she held a Greek mythology book open in front of her. Walking and reading was quite the feat.
“AP Biology,” I answered.
“Gross,” the three of them chimed in in unison.
“Good luck.” Darrington clapped me on the shoulder. “I almost failed that last year.”
“That was regular biology, dumb dumb, and you did fail that last year,” Matt corrected him.
“No. I passed it in summer school, so it cancels it out. Am I right?” He laughed.
“No, you’re still an idiot.” Matt rolled his eyes. “Claire has class close to Biology. She’ll take you.”
She raised her eyebrows but never took her eyes off the book in front of her. “I will?”
“Sure. Catch up later?” Matt gave Darrington a shove in the opposite direction, and together they walked off as the first warning bell echoed through the hallways.
I noticed several people had stopped to say hello to them as they made their way through the crowd.
“Follow me.” Claire was still holding her book in front of her face as she somehow maneuvered in the crowd. A skill I didn’t have even without a book in my face. People moved out of Claire’s way without giving it a second thought. Several people surveyed me as I followed behind her. I was unsure if I was supposed to strike up a conversation. She seemed to be busy.
Claire didn’t say hi back to a single person, I couldn’t help but notice.
“You’re here.” She stopped briefly at a door and glanced up from her book. “Good luck.” I watched as she walked away. I still had a minute till class started. I quickly scribbled her name on a blank sheet of paper.
AP Biology was rather uneventful. I was given the opportunity to do another icebreaker, which was short-lived this time. The class was in the middle of a fetal pig dissection and the teacher didn’t want to waste too much time. Lucky me.
By the time I had my third icebreaker I was a pro. I was back in Mrs. Kaiser’s class for US Government, and I was pretty good at being Abigail. I learned my dad was the corporate leader for a company that fixed up old arcades. This made me kind of a cool kid, because apparently the most popular hangout was an old arcade near the school. Each time I opened the notebook, I was greeted with more words. I pictured Glen somewhere above, feverishly scribbling everything he wanted me to know.
Being Abigail wasn’t so bad. I just had to keep that up for three months, and then I could go back to figuring out what the next step was.
For the time being, though, I needed to get it together. People were starting to notice my weird lapses in conversation when I was lost in thought. On the one hand, I didn’t care. I wasn’t sure how I’d be around anyway. I tapped my pencil on the edge of my desk. I needed to find a way to get people to like me. It was the only way I was going to get information or answers.
“Stop it,” the girl next to me whispered angrily. I looked over at her for the first time. Whoever she was, she was strikingly beautiful underneath all the makeup she had caked on. She was wearing gold eyeshadow and fake eyelashes you could clearly tell were glued on hastily. Her hair was also bright orange, no roots showing, which meant that at least one thing had to be natural about her.
“Sorry,” I hastily whispered back. We were supposed to be doing independent reading.
She didn’t say anything and I suddenly felt the need to make this mysterious girl like me.
“I’m Abigail,” I tried again, whispering louder this time.
“Yes. You’ve been in all of my classes so far,” She didn’t even bother looking at me. I was surprised I hadn’t noticed her. So much for making friends, though. I smiled at her anyways.
“What’s your name? I thought I recognized you.”
She sighed, exasperated with my incessant need for conversation.
“Thorton,” she replied.
“That’s a neat name. Named after anything?”
“Girls,” Mrs. Kaiser said from her desk. “Less chatting, more reading.”
Damnit. I had gotten Thorton in trouble. There goes what had the potential to blossom into a beautiful friendship, I thought, half sarcastically.
Thorton’s face lit up. As if b
eing scolded was exactly what she wanted. She shot Mrs. Kaiser a look before leaning towards me, lowering her voice to a whisper. “My dad was a garbage man. He met my mom on his route on Thorton Avenue and it was love at first sight. So, that’s that.”
I nodded. “Neat. Super romantic, actually.”
“I guess. Except when you think about the fact that he probably smelled like crap from dealing with people’s chicken bones and shit-filled diapers all day.”
Yikes. I didn’t know what to say to that.
“Plus, he’s now dead from a drug overdose.” She smiled at me before returning her attention back to her book. I wondered briefly if she was trolling, but the smirk that lingered on her face told me she wasn’t.
I flipped open my notebook and the words, which had helped to shape who I was thus far, were gone. Claire and Thorton’s names were added to a fresh page. I tucked my notebook into my textbook and leaned back in my chair so that I could sneakily get the work that mattered done. The three branches of government could wait. I quickly filled in details myself about Matt’s friends. I wasn't sure if I was even supposed to be writing in the notebook but my hands were zooming across the paper. I couldn’t stop. It was as if the details needed to flow out of me at record speed or they’d be lost forever.
I was feeling good until I realized the kid on the other side of me, opposite of Thorton, was staring.
“What are you doing?” he whispered. I quickly, and what I hoped was nonchalantly, crossed both my arms over the notebook and cocked my head towards him.
“Uhhh.” I had nothing. Now, would be a good time for God to send down a lightning bolt or at least make the power flicker or something before my whole cover was blown to shit.
He was now craning his neck, making it quite obvious he was trying to figure out what I had been scribbling down.
“If you’re looking to cheat...” He looked around dramatically as if to make sure no one was listening. They weren’t. I figured this couldn’t have been the first time he had been ignored during his time here.
If Heaven Had Cheese Fries Page 8
