Feathermore

  * * *

  I opened my eyes to a brightly lit room. I sat up and looked around. It was the nurse’s office. I threw off the thin white sheet that was covering me.

  “Oh, good! You’re awake.” Mrs. Robbins’s chair creaked as she turned around to face me. She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “How are you feeling, Jade?”

  “What happened?” I stammered.

  “You fainted in class. You don’t remember?” She brought her face closer and looked intently at me.

  “No, I don’t,” I answered as she put her wrist against my forehead and then on my cheeks.

  “You don’t have a fever, but I’m not sure sending you back to class would be such a great idea.” She slid her chair back to her table and wrote something on a paper. “Do you have anyone who can give you a ride home?”

  Yeah, I’ll just call my family. Oh, wait! That’s right—they’re dead. “Uh, no.”

  “Well, you only live a couple of blocks away. You think you’ll be okay to walk home?” She tilted her head to the side as she waited for my response.

  Was she kidding me? “I’m sorry,” I said. “You’re the nurse, but is it such a great idea for me to be home alone? Unsupervised? What if I faint again?”

  She scribbled something else on the paper and stood up. “You just need rest, honey. I promise, you’ll be fine.”

  Yeah, that’s what everyone keeps telling me.

  She handed me the paper, and I went to the front office. I handed the paper to the secretary, Nicole, and then walked to my car. No way was I walking home in this cold.

  As I drove through the parking lot I spotted Amy’s red convertible next to Avan’s car. With nothing more than a simple thought, all four tires on her car went flat.

  I parked in the driveway but didn’t get out—just sat there thinking back on the morning’s events. I looked up at the front door as I was opening the car door . . . and froze. Blake was sitting on the steps. I felt everything around me light up, as if he had erased everything bad that had happened to me. Looking at him sent butterflies doing loop-de-loops in my stomach. I walked around the truck, and when I looked again, he was gone. I could see no trace of his presence, but a single red rose lay on the step where he had been sitting.

  17. PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT