“It was nothing,” he replied.
“You kind of saved my ass,” I pointed out.
“Just being neighborly.”
I smiled, then turned to cross those fourteen feet, seven point two inches back to my house. I’d only taken a couple of steps when he said, “Hey. If I saved your ass, you should tell me your name.”
I’d been in this place many times in the last two years, not to mention once already today. The name I’d chosen, the girl I’d decided to be here, was poised on the tip of my tongue. But in that place, at that moment, something happened. Like that quick trip below the surface had changed not only the trajectory of my life here, but maybe me, as well.
“Mclean,” I said.
He nodded. “Nice to meet you.”
“You, too.”
I could hear the music from the party, that same bass thumping, as I crossed to the deck. As I pulled open my side door, I glanced back, just in time to see him climbing back down the stairs, the flashlight’s glow rising up around him.
I went into my house, kicking off my shoes and padding down the hallway to the bathroom. When I turned on the light, the brightness startled me, as did the faint dusting of dirt that covered my face. Like I, too, had been tunneling, digging, and had only just now come up for air.
Three
Jackson High was not the Gulag. It was also no Fountain School. Instead, it was pretty much just like all the other public high schools I’d attended: big, anonymous, and smelling of antiseptic. After filling out the typical mountain of paperwork and having a rushed meeting with a clearly overworked guidance counselor, I was handed a schedule and pointed toward my homeroom.
“Okay, people, quiet down,” the teacher, a very tall guy in his early twenties wearing leather sneakers and a dress shirt was saying as I approached the door. “Typically, we’ve got twenty minutes’ worth of stuff to do in five minutes. So help me out, all right?”
No one appeared to be listening, although there was a barely discernable reduction in volume as people made their way to a half circle of tables and desks, some pulling out chairs, others hopping up on tables or plopping on the floor below. A cll phone was ringing; someone in the back had a hacking cough. By the door, there was a TV showing two students, a blonde girl and a guy with short dreads, sitting at a makeshift news desk, with a sign behind them that said JACKSON FLASH! The teacher was still talking.
“. . . Today is the last day to hand in your yearbook orders,” he was saying, reading off various pieces of paper that were on the desk in front of him as a few more people straggled in. “There will be a table in the courtyard during all three lunches. Also, doors will open early for the basketball game tonight, so the earlier you get there, the better seat you’ll get. And where’s Mclean?”
I jumped, hearing this, then raised my hand. “Here,” I said, although it came out sounding entirely too much like a question.
“Welcome to Jackson High,” he said, as everyone, en masse, turned to look at me. On the TV screen, the student reporters were signing off, waving as the picture went black. “Any questions, feel free to ask me or anyone here. We are a friendly bunch!”
“Actually,” I said, reflexively going to correct him, “it’s . . .”
“Moving on,” he continued, not hearing me, “I’ve been instructed to tell you again that you are not to touch the wet paint outside the cafeteria. Most people would know this without being told, but apparently some of you are not like most people. So: keep your dirty mitts off the wet paint. Thank you.”
The bell sounded, drowning out the various responses to this message. The teacher sighed, looking down at the papers he obviously hadn’t gotten to, then shuffled them into a stack as everyone got up again.
“Make it a good day!” he shouted halfheartedly, as people started spilling into the hallway. I hung back, standing to the side of his desk until he glanced up and saw me. “Yes? What can I do for you?”
“I just,” I began, as a pack of girls in cheerleader uniforms filed in, gabbing, “I wanted to say my name isn’t—”
“Wendy!” he called out suddenly. His eyes narrowed. “Didn’t we just have a conversation about dressing appropriately for school?”
“Mr. Roberts,” a girl groaned from behind me, “get off my case, okay? I’m having a bad day.”
“Probably because it’s January and you’re half naked. Go change,” he replied. He looked back at me, but only for a second before his attention was again diverted by a crash in the back of the room. “Hey!” he said. “Roderick, I told you not to lean on that shelf! Honestly . . .”
Clearly, it was useless to try to do this now, so I stepped out into the hallway, looking down at my schedule as Wendy—a big girl in what I had to admit was a very short skirt for any season—huffed out behind me. I retraced my steps to the guidance office, figuring I’d try to tackle the rest of the building from there. Once I found it, I hung a right toward what I hoped was Wing B, passing a group of people gathered in front of the main office.
“. . . sure you understand our position,” an older man with curly hair, wearing a dress shirt and jacket, his back to me, was saying. “Our son’s schooling has been a top priority ever since we realized his potential as a small child. Which is why we had him at Kiffney-Brown. The opportunities there—”
“—were exceptional,” a short, thin woman finished for him. “And, as you’re aware, it was when he transferred here that all these problems began.”
“Of course,” the woman opposite them, in a pantsuit and sensible haircut that screamed administrator, even without the laminated ID hanging around her neck, replied. “But we believe he can get everything he needs, both academically and socially, here at Jackson. I think that by working together, all of us, we can help him to do just that.”
The man nodded. His wife, clutching her purse with a weary expression and looking less convinced, glanced at me as I passed. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her, at least not at first. So I kept walking, taking a left and consulting my schedule again.
I was scanning doorways and room numbers when I saw Riley. She was sitting on a bench, leaning slightly forward and craning her neck to look out in the hall, a backpack parked beside her. I knew her instantly, from the rings on her fingers and the same puffy jacket, now tied around her waist. She didn’t look at me as I passed, too intent on watching the group in the hallway.
My math class was supposedly in room 215, but all I could find were 214, 216, and a bathroom that was out of order. Finally, I figured out what I needed was on the next corridor down, so I doubled back. I was just approaching Riley again when she jumped to her feet, grabbed her bag, and darted out into the main hallway ahead of me. The group was farther down now, by the stairs. The only person in the hallway was a guy with short hair wearing a white button-down oxford and khakis.
“What did they say?” Riley said as she ran up to him.
He glanced at the group, then back at her. “They’ll agree to let me stay if I keep up my U courses. And about a hundred other attached strings.”
“But you can stay,” she said, clarifying.
“Looks that way, yeah.”
She reached up, throwing her arms around his neck and giving him a hug. He smiled down at her, then glanced over at the group by the office. “Hey, shouldn’t you be in class?”
“It’s fine,” Riley said, flipping her hand. “I have drama, they won’t even notice I’m gone.”
“Don’t waste an absence on this,” he said. “It’s not worth it.”
“I just wanted to make sure they weren’t going to pull you out. I was freaking.”
“Everything’s fine,” he said. “Don’t freak.”
Don’t freak. It was only when I heard this that it hit me. I looked at the guy again: short hair, clean-cut. Your generic High School Boy. Except he wasn’t. He was Dave Wade, neighbor and storm-cellar dweller. The clothes might have been different, the hair short, but I knew his face. It was the
one thing that no matter what, you could never really change.
Riley stepped back from him. “Okay. But I’ll see you at lunch, right?”
“David? ” His mom was standing by the office door, holding it open. Just beyond, I could see his dad and the administrator disappearing down a hallway. “We’re ready to go in now.”
Dave nodded at her, then looked back at Riley. “Duty calls,” he said, and gave her a rueful smile before walking away. She watched him go, biting her lip, before turning around and starting down the stairs. A moment later, the door banged, and I saw her jogging up the walk that led to the adjacent building, her bag bouncing against her back.
I looked at my schedule again, took a breath, then walked over to the other hallway and scanned the doors until I found 215. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to interrupting just as the teacher got things under way, much less having to take a seat with all those eyes on me. But it was better than a lot of other options, especially the ones Dave had spared me from the other night. I was lucky to be here. So I reached for the knob, took a breath, and went inside.
Two periods later, I braved the cafeteria, taking a chance on a chicken burrito that didn’t look entirely inedible. I brought it outside, along with a wad of napkins and a bottled water, then settled myself on the wall that ran along the main building. Farther down, a group of guys with handhelds played games in tandem; on my other side, a very tall, broad-shouldered guy and a pretty blonde girl were sharing an iPod and a pair of earbuds, arguing—albeit good-naturedly—about what was playing as they listened.
I pulled out my phone, turned it on, then clicked open a new text message and typed in my dad’s number. MADE IT TO LUNCH, I wrote. YOU?
I hit SEND, then scanned the courtyard before me, taking in the array of typical groups and cliques. The stoners kicked around a Hacky Sack, the drama girls talked too loudly, and those who cared about the world sat at various tables lined up along the walk, collecting money and selling baked goods for various causes. I was unrolling the foil on my burrito, wondering where exactly Liz Sweet belonged among them, when I saw the blonde, busty girl I’d met at the party on Friday night. She was cutting across the grass, wearing tight jeans, high boots, and a cropped, red leather jacket that was clearly more for show than warmth. She looked irritated as she passed by, heading for a group of picnic tables on the edge of the parking lot. After taking a seat at one she crossed her legs, pulled out a cell phone, and looked up at the sky as she put it to her ear.
My phone beeped and I picked it up, scanning the screen.
JUST BARELY, my dad had replied. THE NATIVES ARE VERY RESTLESS.
My dad expected to encounter resistance when he first came into a restaurant, but apparently Luna Blu was an extreme case. There were several “lifers,” as he called them, people who had worked there for years for the original owners, an older couple who’d moved to Florida the year before. They’d thought they could manage things long-distance, but their balance sheet quickly proved otherwise, and they decided to sell to EAT INC in order to enjoy their golden years. According to what my dad had told me the day before at breakfast, Luna Blu had been running for the last year or so on little else but the goodwill of its longtime regulars, and even they weren’t showing up the way they used to. There was no point in trying to tell that to the natives—employees—however. Like so many before them, they didn’t care that my dad was only the messenger. They still wanted to shoot him.
I took a tentative bite of my burrito. By the time I’d opened my water, taken a sip, and braved another taste, I saw Riley was approaching the blonde at the table. I watched as she dd her backpack on the ground, then slid onto the bench beside her, leaning her head against the blonde’s shoulder. After a moment, her friend reached up, giving her a couple of pats on the back.
“Hi!”
I jumped, spilling some beans across my shirt, then looked up. A girl in a bright green sweater, khakis, and white sneakers, a matching green headband in her hair, was smiling down at me. “Hi,” I said, noticeably less enthusiastically.
“You’re new, right?” she asked.
“Um,” I said, glancing back at Riley and her friend. “Yeah. I guess I am.”
“Great!” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Deb. With the student hospitality committee? It’s my job to welcome you to Jackson and make sure you’re finding your way around okay.”
Hospitality committee? This was a first. “Wow,” I said. “Thanks.”
“No problem!” Deb reached down, brushing off the wall beside me with one hand, then sat down next to me, placing her purse—a large, quilted number, also green—beside her. “I was new last year,” she explained. “And this is such a big school, and so hard to navigate, I really felt there was a need for some kind of program to help people get comfortable here. So I started Jackson Ambassadors. Oh, wait, I forgot your welcome gift!”
“Oh,” I said, “you don’t have to—”
But already, she was unzipping her green bag and pulling out a small paper one, tied with a blue-and-yellow ribbon, from within it. There was a sticker on the front that said JACKSON TIGER SPIRIT! also blue and yellow. And shiny. She handed it to me, clearly proud, and I felt like I had no choice but to take it.
“In there,” she said, “you’ll find a pencil, a pen, and the schedules for all the winter sports. Oh, and a list of numbers you might need, like guidance and the main office and the library.”
“Wow,” I said again. Across the courtyard, Riley and her friend were now sharing a bag of pretzels, passing them back and forth.
“Plus,” Deb continued, “some great giveaways from local merchants. There’s a coupon for a free drink at Frazier Bakery, and if you buy any muffin at Jump Java, you can get another for half off!”
Sitting there, I realized that one of two things could happen from here. Either I would hate Deb, or we’d be best friends and Liz Sweet would end up just like her. “That’s really nice,” I said as she beamed at me, clearly proud. “I appreciate it.”
“Oh, it’s no problem,” she said. “I’m just trying to make people feel a little more at home than I did.”
“You had a tough time?”
For a moment, and only a moment, her smile became slightly less perky. “I guess so,” she said. Then she brightened. “But things are great now, seriously. I really like it here.”
“Well,” I said, “I’ve moved around a lot. So, hopefully it won’t be so bad.”
“Oh, I’m sure it won’t be,” she said. “But if you have any problems, my card’s in there as well. Don’t hesitate to call or e-mail, okay? I mean that.”
I nodded. “Thanks, Deb.”
“Thank you!” She smiled at me, then put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, goodness, I’m so rude! I didn’t even get your name. Or did—”
“Mclean!”
I blinked, sure I hadn’t heard this right. But then it came again. Yes, someone was calling me. By my real name.
I turned my head. There, at the picnic table, was the blonde girl, now standing, her hands cupped over her mouth. Yelling. At me.
“Mclean!” she said, then waved. “Hey! We’re over here!”
“Oh,” Deb said, glancing at her, then back at me. “Well. Looks like you’ve already made some friends.”
I looked back at the table, where Riley was watching me as well, the bag of pretzels in one hand. “I guess so,” I said.
“Well,” Deb said, “maybe you don’t need the packet at all. But I just thought . . .”
“No,” I told her, suddenly feeling bad for some reason. “I’m glad to have it. Really.”
She smiled at me. “Good. It’s nice to meet you, Mclean.”
“You, too.”
She stood, then turned on one pert sneaker and started down the walkway, reaching up to adjust her headband as she went. I glanced at the blonde. Come on, she mouthed, waving at me again. So this was my moment, I thought, picking me again, although not exactly the way I’d expected. Still, I got t
o my feet, tossing my burrito in a nearby trash can, and headed across the courtyard to see what would happen next. I was almost there when I looked back in the direction Deb had gone, finding her a moment later by the bus parking lot. She was sitting under a tree, her green purse beside her, sipping a soda. Alone.
The blonde’s name was Heather. How she knew mine was not yet clear.
“I had to save you,” she explained as I approached their table. “That girl Deb is a spazzer freak. I considered it an act of charity to call you over here.”
I looked back at Deb, sitting under the tree. “She didn’t seem so bad.”
“Are you kidding? ” Heather said, incredulous. “She sat next to me in bio last year. Spent the entire semester trying to recruit me to her various groups, all of which she is the sole member of. It was like sharing a Bunsen burner with a cult member.”
“What’s in the bag?” Riley asked, nodding at the welcome packet, which I was still holding.
“A hospitality gift,” I said. “From the student ambassadors.”
“Ambassador,” Heather corrected me, adjusting her ample cleavage. “Hello? She’s the only one!”
I wasn’t sure what I was doing here, now that I’d been saved from Deb. Before I found out, though, there was one more issue to clear up.
“How did you know my name?” I asked Heather.
She’ireen checking her phone, and now looked up at me, squinting in the sunlight. “You told me at that party, before it got busted.”
“No,” I said. “I didn’t.”
She and Riley exchanged a look. Now I was acting like a cult member. Heather said, “Then I guess Dave must have mentioned it.”
“Dave? ”
“Dave Wade? Your neighbor? You did meet him on Saturday, didn’t you?” she asked. “He’s not exactly forgettable.”
“He’s not as weird as he seems,” Riley said to me.
“He’s weirder,” Heather added. When Riley shot her a look, she said, “What? The boy hangs out in the basement of an abandoned house. That’s not normal.”