I know it’s the oldest story in the book, the local crushing on the new guy, but I just couldn’t help it.
And he’s not, like, “hot guy” hot, you know?
Which is funny because, obviously, I’m not the only girl crushing on him.
But he has this… thing… about him.
Well, he has many things going for him.
Like, for instance, that first day he walked into class he was dressed up.
I mean, going for an interview dressed up; pleated khaki pants, braided leather belt, penny loafers, brown socks, light blue cotton button-down shirt – everything but the jacket and tie.
Of course, the guys all snorted and ribbed him about it (to this day most of them call him “Ascot Alex,” though I doubt half the guys at Barracuda Bay High know what an ascot is, only that it sounds snooty), but we girls just thought it was the cutest thing.
Turns out he’d only gone to prep schools, ever, up north, and this was his first public school; he’d just gotten into town a day or two earlier, and didn’t really have enough time to check-out the local customs here in Barracuda Bay, so he’d just gone with his default wardrobe and, boom, instant crushes from girls all over the school.
Now, normally, I’m a straight-hair girl; short and straight, specifically; black if you can swing it, dark brown in a pinch.
So is it weird that Alex has these gorgeous light brown curls and I just can’t stop staring at them?
Also, I like the jocks; always have.
Strong, not exactly stocky but thick; muscle-y, you know?
Not Alex; he’s long and gawky, all elbows and knees and apples in his cheeks and a kind of short, pug nose – which I normally don’t like, either.
But on Alex?
It’s aces; just… positively… aces.
And he has these eyes, that are so green they’re not green, you know?
They’re like… candy… green; “Jolly Rancher green,” I call it.
Although no one would know that because Alex is the crush of which I cannot speak.
Why?
That’s right; it’s a very big no-no and absolutely against one of The 8 Absolutely Unthinkable, Unbreakable Zombie Laws.
(# 6 or 7, I think, but don’t quote me on it.)
Today he’s got on wheat colored chords and a maroon rugby shirt with thin gold stripes and a kind of gold lion crest over his left nipple.
His skin is pale and he’s hairless just about everywhere but his gorgeous curls (and did I mention his abnormally bushy eyebrows, which I also normally don’t like but his are to die for) and if it wasn’t for the sun highlighting the thin peach stubble on his chin I’d swear he hadn’t reached puberty yet.
Now, just so you don’t think I’m both a zombie AND a Chorus Geek, let me explain something first: Chorus is a class in name only.
Our temporary teacher, Mr. Hatcher, is about 23 and looks even younger, and his only musical experience was playing in a garage band while going to Teacher College.
He got picked to teach Chorus because our regular teacher, Ms. Highbrow, went and got herself pregnant and is bound and determined to take every single day of maternity leave she has coming – and then some.
(Not that I can blame her one minute. Sometimes I wish zombies could get pregnant, just so I could take nine months off from passing as a mortal and let it all hang out back home.)
Enter Mr. Hatcher.
Now we basically just find a seat and do crossword puzzles for 45 minutes every day.
I slump in and find a seat near the door, because if I can’t hang with Alex there’s really no reason to be in this room in the first place.
What’s worse, now I have what Piper said to worry about.
Because what Piper didn’t see, and what Bianca had her head too far up Piper’s butt to notice, was the way Fiona Rutherford reached out to touch me on the way out of the bathroom just now.
Because, despite her catty little “She’s the Charlie Brown of goth girls” comment in front of her friends, and despite the way she kind of had to gang up on me just so girls like Piper and Bianca wouldn’t gang up on her, Fiona is actually a pretty nice girl.
We’re not exactly talking Mother Theresa nice here, but nice enough to reach out with a reassuring touch when a rabid pack of catty girls is ganging up on you in the girls’ room.
Which, in high school these days, is pretty much bordering on Mother Theresa nice, if you know what I mean.
And so when Piper and Fiona were concentrating on the paper towel machine and how I could have possibly broken it, and while her friends were busy trying to avoid me at all costs, Fiona reached out gently to reassure me and when she was intending to touch me on my sleeve her hand slipped – or maybe my arm moved, it happened so fast I’m a little vague on the details now – and she.
Touched.
My.
Hand.
My bare hand.
My cold, dead, gray hand.
Now, Fiona has never touched me before.
Fiona has never had any reason to touch me before.
So she’s never felt my cold skin, never gotten a chill or a shiver simply from brushing up against me and here she is touching my hand and in a split-second her naturally pale, genetically mousy little face… changes.
Not in a disgusted way, not in a surprised way, not even in a mean way; it’s even worse than any of those.
It’s like her smart, Math-a-lete brain has suddenly switched into Detective Mode and so right away it’s putting together clues.
Clue # 1, my hands won’t work on the new paper towel dispenser.
Clue # 2, my hands feel like ice, ice baby.
And hands aren’t supposed to feel quite that cold.
I mean, even when you’re sick, and having the chills, humans still have a pretty high threshold of heat going on so… this is something bad; not normal, which in high school is bad.
So immediately our little detective Fiona knows, the minute she touches me, that something is wrong; very, very wrong.
She may not know what I am, exactly; she just knows that I.
Am.
Not.
What.
I.
Say.
I.
Am.
That being, of course… human.
And that’s where all the trouble starts.
I know you would think that somebody like Fiona should have brushed up against and touched me before but I’m normally really, really careful about that type of thing.
And, really, with the way I dress there isn’t that much opportunity for Normals to, you know, touch my skin.
From the black clogs to the black and gray striped leggings to the long maroon sleeves to the too-big hoodies, seriously, you’d have to be really determined to touch me to touch me, and so far nobody’s been all t¬hat determined.
(Especially Fiona Rutherford.)
And the fact that it was my fault that Fiona touched me today, well, that just makes it all the more infuriating.
I mean, of all the stupid, stupid blunders.
I should know better; I’m supposed to know better.
No, I mean, technically, as a zombie I am literally charged with knowing better.
Like, not knowing better is against one of The 8 Absolutely Unthinkable, Unbreakable Zombie Laws (i.e. “Thou Shalt Not Have Physical Contact with Humans Unless Absolutely, Positively Necessary”).
But who could predict that, over the weekend the school would install newfangled paper towel dispensers?
And I’m thinking of all the ways Fiona’s touch can come back to haunt me, in unwanted gossip, in unwanted rumors, in unwanted attention, when suddenly there is a knock on the Chorus room door.
And the minute I hear that knock, I know it’s for me, and I know it has something to do with the bathroom, with Fiona… with my skin.
Of course, it could have been a knock signaling any number of things.
&nbs
p; Some thug (in Chorus?) getting called to the office because he’d pantsed some freshman in the halls before class.
Albert Frostmeyer getting called up to the office because his mom had forgotten to pack his lunch (again).
Or simply Alex Foster getting called to the office on account of terminal hotness!
Yeah, right; it’s for me.
I know it’s for me.
It has to be for me.
That knock just has my name on it.
And sure enough, when Mr. Hatcher stands up and opens the door for the knock that bears my name, the person holding the note is none other than Fiona and she has this overly-concerned look on her pasty, doughy face as she hands it to the sub and waits for me.
For me.
And the sub lifts his head and, even after being our teacher for two weeks now he looks clear past me to some chick in the alto section and asks, “Lucy? Lucy Frost?”
* * * * *
Chapter 3
“What’s this all about, Fiona?” I snap the minute the Chorus room door swings silently shut behind us and we’re out in the hall alone, clomping toward the front office.
She’s already walking a few paces ahead of me, none too eager to touch me again, when she calls back cryptically over her shoulder, “You’ll see, Lucy.”
I catch up to her in three long, stiff paces.
(Now, zombies can’t exactly run but when we’re motivated we can move quickly enough.)
“I don’t want to ‘see,’ Fiona. I want to know right now what this is all about.”
She stops and turns and faces me, still careful to keep her distance, and her eyes are no longer scared but concerned and she says, stammering a little because she’s probably not so great at confrontation, “Nothing, Lucy, I just… your skin’s so… cold. And that whole… incident… with the paper towel dispenser—”
“Incident? I would hardly call a broken paper towel dispenser an ‘incident,’ Fiona. Gheez, overreact much?”
“It wasn’t broken, Lucy; it worked fine. For everybody but… you.”
“What is the big deal about the paper towel dispenser, Fiona? Seriously, I don’t get it.”
She shrugs. “Me either; it’s supposed to work on human hands, and it does, so… why doesn’t it work on yours?”
“Because it’s broken, malfunctioning, defunct, a dud… that’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
She doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, avoiding eye contact all the while, and then she adds, “Well, that’s not all, Lucy. I mean, after I touched you, and my hand nearly froze off, well, I took a closer look and, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way or anything but, Lucy, you don’t look… good.”
“Great, Fiona, thanks. I don’t know how else to take that but the wrong way. But I appreciate that. Way to boost the old morale there. Awesome. Thanks. Great. Super.”
“It’s just… your skin. I’m not sure you’re entirely healthy, is all.”
“I’m just fine, Fiona, seriously,” I snap, voice rising as my frustration reaches a new level of frustratedness. “I don’t need you, or Bianca or Piper or any of your Math-a-lete friends thinking I’m not fine, so you need to just stop, now, with all the handwringing and paper towel dispensing because I. Am. Fine. Honest.”
Even in the face of my harangue Fiona just stands her ground and when I’m through she just kind of says, quietly, so no one else will overhear, “I was concerned, Lucy, that’s all.”
And I kind of step back because I’ve spent my whole high school career here at Barracuda Bay staying out of the civilians’ way and half-expecting them to come after me with pitchforks and torches every day at school and suddenly this one… this one… is concerned.
About me?
But then I see the color of the Pass in her hand – a kind of minty green, and not the cool chocolate minty green like I used to get in the movies when I was alive and could still taste things like chocolate and mint and popcorn, but a kind of medicine-you-don’t-want-to-take minty green.
And I suddenly remember that in addition to all her other I-want-to-get-into-Harvard-so-bad junior year electives she is also the Counselor’s Aid for 6th Period and it snaps me back into the cruel reality of my… particular… situation.
“Okay, Fiona, well… thanks, that’s really… sweet… of you and everything but, what does that have to do with you taking me out of Chorus – and away from Alex Foster?”
And suddenly Fiona is no longer concerned but conspiratorial and she inches just a little closer and says, “So you DO have a crush on Alex Foster? I knew it. I think that’s… sweet.”
Sweet, huh?
That’s girl-speak for NOT sweet.
So I snap back, “Sweet? What’s so ‘sweet’ about it?”
And Fiona takes another step back, crinkling the minty green hall pass in the process and says, “Nothing, it’s just… you guys are such opposites, is all.”
Hmm, and there it is; right out in the open.
We’re “opposites” because why would a strictly hunky, straight arrow, A-list, prep school type with long legs and tight fists and clear eyes and dirty blond curls fall for pale, cold, heartless, rude, some might say moody “Goth Girl,” right?
And I open my mouth to say just that, to spit it out, word-for-word, just like that, but I don’t; I let my eyes do the talking and do they ever, smoldering all the way to the front office.
(Hey, my skin might be ice cold but I can still shoot red hot laser beams with my eyeballs. You know, not literally but… metaphorically… speaking, of course.)
Before we go in I stop her, risking another frosty touch to the shoulder, and say, “Fiona, what I meant was, why am I being called up to the office?”
She shrugs and says, “Well, you know I’m Mr. Thompson’s aide this period, right? And, well, the way your hand was, so cold, and the way the paper towel machine wouldn’t work on only your hand—”
“Arrggh, again with that STUPID paper towel machine? What IS the big frickin’ deal, Fiona? So my hands are cold, so what?”
“It’s not just that, Lucy, it’s… everything else. I mean, you and I have never spent much time together, sure, we have a few classes and I see you in the halls, from a distance, but when you put all the pieces together, the pale makeup, the black clothes, the cold skin and, yes, the paper towel dispenser, I think, is actually what they’re called, not a paper towel machine, anyway, I just mentioned it, casually, to Mr. Thompson and right away he wanted to see you up front so…”
“You mean, the same Mr. Thompson who has an industrial size bottle of hand sanitizer hanging from a clip on his fanny pack? The same Mr. Thompson who opens doors with his feet instead of his hands? The same Mr. Thompson who wipes a germ wipe around his germ wipe container before grabbing a new germ wipe? That Mr. Thompson? The germ freak of all germ freaks?”
“One in the same,” she says, brightening, like I’ve maybe won some type of booby prize or something for getting it right. “He thought maybe your symptoms sounded like the early stages of swine flu so—”
“They’re not symptoms, Fiona, they’re… just… me. That’s how I’ve always been; a little pale, running cold, no biggie. And what right do YOU have to go off telling anyone anything about me, anyway, you nosy little… little… snoop?”
And right when I’m about to break Law # 4 (or is it # 5?) of The 8 Absolutely Unthinkable, Unbreakable Zombie Laws (i.e. “Thou Shalt Not Injure a Human Unless it is Absolutely Necessary”) and pound Fiona Rutherford straight through the cinderblock wall of Barracuda Bay High, the door opens and a huge man with a fanny pack full of dangling hand sanitizer bellows, “What’s all the commotion out here?”
And then he sees Fiona and his hard face softens like he’s greeting his long lost daughter and then he sees me and it hardens like he’s seeing his other long lost daughter – you know, the ugly one who can’t read or write so good – and he says, “Oh yes, Lucy, it looks like we’ve caught you just in time.?
??
* * * * *
Chapter 4
“You haven’t ‘caught’ anything,” I fume, foot defiantly up on Mr. Thompson’s desk a few minutes later as the three of us settle into his claustrophobic office.
Mr. Thompson is your classic career guidance counselor, complete with a bushy moustache, pleated khakis, braided belt, thinning hair, dandruff flaked glasses resting halfway down his greasy mid-day nose and a wall full of cute kitties hanging off trembling branches encased in their obligatory “Hang in there” inspirational posters dotting the walls behind his put-it-together-yourself brown wooden desk from Wal-mart (probably).
“As I was telling Fiona just a second ago, there’s NOTHING wrong with me, Mr. Thompson. Besides, what’s she still doing here? Isn’t this supposed to be confidential or something? You know, counselor-patient privilege or something?”