Under My Skin

  "You guys mind if Elzie tags along?" I ask.

  I catch Marina's frown, but all she says is, "Has she got a board?"

  "I can lend her my spare."

  She rolls her eyes at that.

  "Come on," I say. "Give her a chance."

  When she puts her hands up in surrender and nods, I turn to Desmond.

  "This isn't going to be a boyfriend-girlfriend thing, is it?" he asks. "Because that leaves Marina and me as the other couple."

  Marina makes gagging sounds.

  "Nice," he says.

  "No, we'll just hang," I assure them.

  "What the hell," Desmond says. "I'd like to check out the hot Rasta Wildling."

  Marina and I both shush him at the same time.

  "What?" he says. "Oh yeah." He looks around. "It's cool. Nobody's listening."

  "You have to be more careful," Marina says. "If you out somebody, it won't be a joke. You could be screwing up their whole life."

  "I know, I know. But why can't this be a cool thing? If it was me and I had to keep it a secret, I think I'd explode."

  "I know what you mean," I say as I text Elzie back. "It shouldn't have to be a secret."

  My phone vibrates almost as soon as I've sent the text. I smile when I read her reply. Kiss kiss. c u @ your place.

  I know I shouldn't read too much into it, but I can't help but get a little buzz.

  "What's with the goofy grin?" Desmond asks. Then he shakes his head. "Aw, man. Did she just sext you? Tell me she didn't just send you a naked picture of herself."

  "Mind out of the gutter," I tell him.

  Marina just shakes her head. I hope my being a Wildling isn't what's distancing her. She's hard to read these days.

  Marina

  I'm glad to grab an hour at home before we meet up at the skate park. I need a distraction from the Josh-and-Elzie thing anyway.

  I haven't had time in the past couple of days to work on my blog and with so many kids following me, I sort of feel like I've been abandoning them. Not that all of them are Wildlings, but even so, it's better to give some genuine perspective on what it's like to have changed than what the media's been putting out. That's been getting worse every day.

  It's pretty amazing how alone being a Wildling can make you feel. Maybe I'm nuts to post on the Net about it, but I've been careful to cover my tracks, and what I'm writing is obviously helping some kids who've been having a rough time.

  It became pretty clear when I started that a lot of them didn't have the benefit of someone like Jez or Chaingang to give them advice. I'm kind of trying to fill that gap.

  What worries me is that I think some of the kids who've posted comments regularly have since disappeared. At least, they're not posting comments on my page anymore. Those government ads give me the creeps. And now, hearing about how this guy Danny turned out to be a traitor, I figure it won't hurt to give kids another warning about not necessarily trusting other Wildlings.

  So I dash off a quick couple of paragraphs—not naming any names, of course— and take another ten minutes to respond to some of the latest comments.

  Then it's time to head for the skate park.

  I tilt my head from side to side trying to get the tightness out of my shoulders. I knew this was coming—that sooner or later I'd have to witness Josh and Elzie up close and personal. But I didn't think it would happen this fast. I roll down the street, my wheels skimming along on the smooth pavement. As they say, know your enemy.

  That's not really fair, but it feels like it's true all the same.

  Josh

  I see a girl with a short buzz cut waiting out in front of my house when I turn the corner onto my street. She's wearing a Big Daddy Roth T-shirt, a jean miniskirt and short pink cowboy boots. It takes me a moment to realize it's Elzie.

  "What happened to your hair?"

  She shrugs. "I needed a new look. What do you think?"

  "You look great. But what happened to lying low? Isn't the FBI still looking for you?"

  "Hence the disguise," she says.

  "But those dreads. They were so serious."

  "It's just hair. I can grow them back." She hugs me and gives me a quick peck on the cheek. "Did you miss me?" Before I can answer, she adds, "Because I missed you."

  I blink in surprise and she raises an eyebrow.

  "I'm confused," I tell her. "I mean, yeah, of course I missed you. But I thought—where are we going with this?"

  "I don't know. Let's just see where it takes us. Are you okay with that?"

  The whole day I've been up and down. Buzzed because of the amazing night we had, bummed because I thought I was maybe never going to see her again. And now here she is, acting like my girlfriend. I don't know what to think. But I'm not about to walk away from her.

  "Of course I'm okay with it." I clear my throat. "So do you want to use my spare board?"

  She nods. "But my moves are going to be a bit rusty."

  "Nobody's going to care," I tell her. "We just skate to have fun."

  With the way Marina's been acting lately, I'm nervous when we get to the park. Normally, I'd never worry about how she'll be around people, but she's got such a bee in her bonnet about Elzie that I'm half-expecting fireworks when I introduce the two of them. But something funny happens. They say hello and shake hands, then they just stand there, still holding hands, looking like they're trying to read each other's mind. Finally, a little smile tugs up the corner of Elzie's mouth and they step apart.

  "Nice boots," Marina says. "Where'd you get them?"

  "The thrift shop."

  "No way. Those are Fluevogs. They're worth a fortune."

  "You can get all kinds of deals there," Elzie says. "You just have to go in on a regular basis. Let me know if there's anything you're looking for and I'll keep an eye out for it."

  I sigh with relief. If they're talking shoes, it's going to be okay.

  Desmond wheels up and pops his board.

  "This is Desmond," I say. "And this is Elzie."

  Desmond gets a puzzled look. "What happened to the dreads? I thought you were a Rasta girl."

  Elzie shoots me an amused look. "I was never a Rasta girl."

  "Don't mind him," Marina says. "He always has to reduce everything to its most basic element. Since your dreads are gone and you've got a board, he's probably going to start calling you skater chick."

  Desmond sticks his nose in the air in an exaggerated pose. "Would not."

  Marina looks at him. "So you don't call me drummer girl when you're hanging with your skater buddies at school?"

  "Are we going to talk," Desmond says, "or are we going to skateboard?"

  We skateboard.

  There's always someone with an iPod dock blasting out music here. Right now it's cranked to an old Jay-Z song. We couldn't be farther from New York City than we are at this moment, but everybody sings along with Alicia Keys on the chorus.

  I ask Elzie at one point what happened there when she and Marina were first saying hello.

  "Girl stuff," she says and that's all I can get out of her.

  But later on I see the two of them, heads together, having what looks like a serious conversation. This time I don't ask.

  Marina

  As much as I don't want to like Elzie, I can't help but feel her charisma as soon as she grasps my hand. Worse, as soon as she looks at me, I just know that she can see the otter sitting under my skin. My pulse goes into double time, like my big bass drum is pounding right inside my chest. I'm so sure she's going to out me to Josh and Desmond, but she's cool enough to not blow my cover and never says a word. Her eyes just flicker with recognition, but the expression's gone so quickly that I doubt Josh has noticed anything unusual. Unless, that is, two girls holding hands for this long makes him wonder if we've got the hots for each other.

  I smile to myself. Now wouldn't that be ironic?

  But of course, it's not that at all.

  Later on, we take a breather on one of the benches wh
ile the boys are showing off.

  "How did you know about ... you know?" I ask.

  "That you're a Wildling?"

  I nod.

  "I just did. It's like I get a little ping in my head whenever I meet someone who's got an animal skin under their human one."

  "It just happens?"

  She shrugs. "You have to learn to pay attention and work at it a bit, but it'll come quick. Any Wildling can do it."

  "I don't know …"

  "Trust me," she says. When I still look dubious, she adds, "Have you never gotten a little twinge at the back of your neck when you first met someone, or even just saw someone?"

  "I guess that happened earlier, when we met. I didn't realize it was because you're a Wildling."

  "Well, that's your animal self sending you a message. And now you know what it means."

  "Can Josh do it?"

  "Sure. To some degree."

  "Then how come he doesn't know about me?"

  "He's too close to you. Your smell is familiar to him. If he concentrated, he might figure it out, but he doesn't try because he knows you so well. Maybe if you'd changed after him, he'd notice, but you've been a Wildling for a while. He'll pick up on it a lot quicker with strangers than with anyone he knows."

  Okay, I think. So I'm safe for now.

  "But now I've got a question," Elzie says. "I got the impression from Josh that you guys are all really tight. So why haven't you told him?"

  "It's complicated," I say. "I don't know. All the negative crap on the news and stuff about Wildlings had me scared, I guess. Especially about Desmond. You can see that he's a doll, but he's not exactly the most inhibited person on the planet. He's hot-wired for excitement. Fun as hell to hang out with, but a bit unpredictable when it comes to keeping secrets."

  "Okay, but why not tell Josh? He's so cool. You must know that he'd be totally down with it."

  Elzie's persistence forces me to think fast. I don't want to reveal my true feelings toward Josh, so I do my best to brush her off.

  "Yeah, but we're like The Gang of Three, you know? It wouldn't be fair to tell Josh and not Des. I was going to get around to it sooner or later, but the time just never seemed right and now that Josh has changed … well, I'm kind of screwed. He told Des and me right away, so I know he'll be pissed as hell that I didn't do the same."

  "You've probably got that right, girlfriend," she says, giving me a quick one-armed hug. "Hey, don't worry. Your secret's safe with me. I wouldn't want to get in the middle of this one anyway. Way too messy for me."

  Then she tosses her head back as if she's still got a mass of dreads and gives a little laugh. "Let's not give the boys any more suspicions about our girlish love than they already have."

  She flips the board back on the ground and zooms back over to Josh, giving him a swaggery little hip action on her dismount followed by a playful smooch. Her tongue darts into his mouth and I see him almost shudder with pleasure.

  This is going to be hard.

  Josh

  It just seems natural that we all grab a bite together after and that Elzie comes along to our band practice.

  I take Marina aside before we go in the garage.

  "She's not going to Yoko Ono the band," I say.

  "Relax, Josh. I like her."

  "You do?"

  "What's not to like? She's smart and funny and I'll bet she doesn't take crap from anybody. And besides, if she's part of your life now, then she's part of mine, too."

  I feel my whole body relax. This is more the Marina I know.

  "She's probably not even going to stick around that long," I say. "She told me she doesn't want a relationship right now."

  Marina just gives me a look. "Are you kidding? Do you see the way she looks at you? The girl's smitten."

  "Smitten?" I laugh. "I don't think I've ever heard that word said aloud."

  She punches me in the arm.

  Elzie turns around from where she's walking with Desmond.

  "What are you guys talking about?" she asks.

  "How I need to smite him," Marina says.

  Elzie laughs. "Oh yeah. We do have to keep 'em in line, don't we?"

  We hang out together all weekend. Mom likes Elzie right off the bat. Marina manages to hold any remaining reservations she has at bay. And Desmond ... well, he's just Desmond. So long as there's no drama, everybody's his friend.

  It's a bit strange. I'm not complaining, but for a girl who didn't want any commitment, Elzie's pretty steadfast. Every day at the end of school, she's waiting for us outside. Sometimes the four of us go do something as a group, sometimes Elzie and I go off on our own. It's all good. Better than good. I'm even starting to relax about the whole Wildling thing. At least I am until we all go to the skate park the next Friday—the four of us, along with Cindy Hudson, a blonde surfer girl that Desmond met in Pages Café & Used Books over on Main Street.

  We're laughing and joking as we make our way to the skate park, but when we get there, nobody's on their boards. The place is silent. Everybody's standing around like they're in shock—the way it must have been when John Lennon or Kurt Cobain died.

  "What's going on?" Desmond asks Kevin Blain, who's just sitting on his board, staring at nothing.

  Kevin doesn't answer, but his older brother David does.

  "You know your buddy Mike Castle?" he says.

  Desmond frowns. "Castle the Asshole's no buddy of mine."

  Last summer we were hanging around at the end of the pier when we saw Castle hassling Clarence Dooley—this old guy who likes to walk his cat along the boardwalk in a baby carriage. He might not be all there, but he's harmless. Castle had taken the carriage from Dooley and kept pushing him away from it. Dooley looked like he was about to cry by the time we got over there.

  "That's enough," Desmond told Castle. "Leave him alone."

  "Why? What are you going to—"

  He never got to finish. Desmond just hauled off and punched him in the face. Before you knew it, he had Castle on the ground and was pounding away on him until me and a couple of guys pulled him off. I'd never seen Des lose it like that before. When I asked him what happened, he could only shake his head.

  "Dude, I have no idea," he'd said. "I just saw Castle pushing Dooley around and I saw red. I mean, everything really just went red."

  "So what did he do?" Desmond asks David now.

  "He took his dad's .22 up under the freeway with Brian Canfield and they killed Laura Connor with it."

  "What?"

  "The cops showed up because somebody'd complained about hearing shooting. When they got there, they found the two of them standing over Laura and she's lying on the ground with a bullet in her head. And get this. She was naked."

  A couple comes up while he's telling us this. Todd Copley and Juanita Herrera. I know them from school.

  "What I heard," Todd says, "is that they were fooling around trying to shoot birds, then he shot a rat up on the embankment, but when it fell back to where they were standing, it was Laura."

  Juanita's got a tight grip on his arm.

  "Jesus," Desmond says.

  Marina and Elzie are white with shock. Marina's trembling. I put my arms around both of them. I want to say something comforting, but I feel sick myself. Desmond holds Cindy, who's starting to cry.

  "Man, I knew her," Kevin says from where he's sitting on his board. "I used to think about asking her out ..."

  We all knew her. Everyone kind of knows everyone around here—in a town of twenty thousand people, that just happens. Not that we knew her really well, but she was on the girls' volleyball team and she often came down to the pier when we were all hanging around. A tall lanky girl with a bright smile and a big laugh.

  David shakes his head. "I can't believe Laura was a Wildling."

  "If she even was," Desmond says. When everybody looks at him, he adds, "Come on. This is Mike Castle we're talking about. I wouldn't put anything past him. And Canfield's not much better."

  Pe
ople start talking about stuff Castle and Canfield have done in the past, and how well they did or didn't know Laura, and how if you're going to be a Wildling, it's pretty lame being stuck as a rat. I feel Elzie's shoulders stiffen under my arm.

  "I'm out of here," she says.

  "Yeah, can we just go?" Marina adds.

  I nod. "Des?" I say.

  "On it," he says.

  He takes Cindy by the hand and we leave. The others are so busy with what they're talking about I don't think they even notice us going.

  "I didn't mean to set that off," Desmond says when we're walking away.

  "You didn't," Elzie tells him. "It's just the way people are."

  He looks at his feet. "Guys like Castle really push my buttons."

  Elzie nudges Des with the tip of my spare board.

  "We're cool," she says.

  "I can't stop thinking about Laura," I say later that night.

  We gave up on band practice and we're all hanging around in Desmond's back yard. Our hearts just weren't in it and we were playing like crap.

  "Do you think she was happy being a rat?" Desmond asks.

  He's stretched out on a patio couch, his head in Cindy's lap. Marina's sitting cross-legged on one of the patio chairs. Elzie and I are slouched on two more, holding hands in the space between our chairs.

  "Do you mean having a rat as her Wildling shape?" Marina asks.

  "Yeah. If it happened to me, I'd be majorly disappointed. Like when you consider all the cool animals you could be ..." He shrugs. "I don't know. I'd just feel cheated."

  "I think rats are cute," Cindy says. "Not the scuzzy ones that live in storm drains and stuff, but the kind you get from a pet store. I had pet rat when I was a kid and I just loved him."

  We all look at her.

  "Well, I did."

  It's been different having someone hanging with us who doesn't know the secret that Elzie and I are carrying. We find ourselves talking around the simplest things, having to be careful we don't say something that'll give us away. I like Cindy, but having her here gives me a whole new respect for those spandexed superheroes with their secret identities.