CHAPTER TWO
After a few weeks of high school I still haven’t caught sight of The 10. It seems like every time Ally starts sweating a river because we’re in the proximity of this mythical being and tells me to look but don’t look at him, I do the strain-my-eye-stare-fake head turn and...he’d be gone. I can’t tell you how super frustrating-slash-uber over him I am. After the latest sighting we both sit down at our lunch table in the cafeteria and open our brown paper bags.
“Really? I’m serious. Knock it off.” I pull out my PBJ. “It was funny for a while, but now, it’s just lame. There’s no such thing as a 10, Ally,” I laugh, taking a bite of my sandwich.
“Take it back,” she says bowing her head down, peering at me. She hadn’t even opened her bag yet. She looks up at me from under her freshly tweezed eyebrows like I’m the enemy.
“Take what back?”
“You know,” she says like I do.
“No, I don’t,” I say shoving my orange back in my brown paper bag.
“Calling me lame,” she doesn’t move a muscle. “Take it back.”
“I didn’t say you were lame. This whole pretend-10 thing is lame,” I say, absorbed in my PBJ sandwich as if it will be my last ever when Ally storms off. Literally. She leaves me alone in the cafeteria at lunch, all by myself at an empty table. We are each other’s armor and I can’t believe she just abandoned me.
I feel all eyes in the cafeteria on me as I roll my orange in my hand, trying to figure out my next move. It’s like a rule of high school. You don’t want to be seen alone. Ever. I don’t want to get handed the Loner Label just weeks into freshman year. I sigh and take another bite out of my sandwich. A lonely bite. It’s going to be a long four years. But then Hayden walks up, slides his paper plate with a greasy slice of pizza down on the table and has a seat right in front of me.
“Hi,” he says taking a huge bite of his pizza, chowing down a half-slice in that single bite.
“Hi,” I say, almost choking on peanut butter.
“I keep looking for you, but you’re never around,” he says.
“Yeah, this high school is huge, huh? I guess you have World History with Ally?”
“Yeah. I wish you were in at least one of my classes.”
I lick my teeth to get all the peanut butter off before I smile. “Hey, I have something I want to ask you, don’t get mad.”
“Why would I get mad?”
“I don’t know it’s just this summer when I brought it up...”
“Brought what up?”
Adrianne’s birthday party last July felt like a million years ago, especially with her not being around anymore. “Do you remember what we talked about at Adrianne’s birthday?”
He finished chewing his pizza, looked from one side of the cafeteria to the other then said, “Listen, Roxie, there’s no going back.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s one of the rules.”
“Who made up the rules anyway?” I say getting sick of everyone else knowing what’s going on except me. At least that’s what it always feels like.
“Roxie, no one goes back,” Hayden whispers.
“Okay so there’s three rules? I’m sort of losing count. Any other rules I should know about?”
“You didn’t listen to me last year, why would you listen to me now?” he says. His eyes kind of turn into slits when he says this.
“Listen, I have to go back. I have the map and the seven secret words and I never found out what they mean. Mitch got me out of there too quick.” For a second I think I see him turn seventeen before my eyes, what he looked like when I wanted to stay in the shadow world forever because I had everything I wanted and Hayden was so amazing. I didn’t want to go home.
“Roxie, you okay?” he says.
“Uh, yeah, I just need to know where it will take me, the map. What the words mean and why the map with the seven words only appeared for me. I need to know what I’m supposed to find.”
“Maybe you were never meant to know. Maybe you shouldn’t have ever gone in the first place.” He says the last part kind of whispering to himself, but loud enough so I can hear.
“Oh, like I wasn’t supposed to save Lola’s life? Besides, everyone goes to Planet Popular. You told me that, remember. Only some people remember and some people don’t. That’s what Mitch said. But maybe you and Mitch were making things up as you go along. Maybe all this stuff about the rules are just lies to keep me from doing what I have to do.”
“And almost die in the process?”
“Well there was a reason why the map appeared only to me. Why I AP’d to Planet Popular to save Lola and remembered everything. I have to go back and find out.”
“No one goes back.”
“You’re only saying that because no one ever has,” I say.
Hayden shakes his head. “Listen, Roxie, it’s complicated.” He gets up from the lunch table and sits on my same side. I gulp down my Capri Sun hoping it will erase my peanut butter breath and make it smell like vanilla ice cream and red hots, the flavor of our kiss in the shadow world. I reach into my pocket for one of the half-stick pieces of gum I always have rattling around in my pockets since I don’t like chewing them whole. I have no idea why and never really thought about it until just this second. My fingers work to unwrap it.
“You know the rules. If you break them you’ll be lost there. Forever. No one will be able to save you. There’s no going back. Don’t try. Some things need to be left alone.”
I sort of just sit there because Hayden has never gotten mad at me before and now that he borderline is, it kind of takes my breath away. The last time he took my breath away the two of us danced and kissed in the shadow world at the Enchanted Island Homecoming Dance. When we were both seventeen. It’s really hard to be fourteen after you’ve been seventeen for a whole day. But, I’m trying. I miss the feeling of his arms around me. I pop the gum in my mouth, trying to ignore the denim fur embedded into it.
“Adrianne’s disappeared.” Hayden says setting only me in his blue-eyed sights. “Isn’t that enough of a OMG? I don’t want you disappearing too.”
“You think Adrianne disappearing has something to do with Lola or Mitch? Or…me?”
“I don’t know. It’s just when friends start disappearing it’s time to rethink, oh I don’t know, things like astral projecting back to the shadow world. Look, I remember when we were at Adrianne’s party last summer and what you said about going back on your birthday...” Hayden’s knee bounces up and down beside me, rubbing against my jeans.
“So you didn’t forget?” I say doing the math in my head. With high school starting and everything going on I really haven’t obsessed about my birthday like last year. But now, in Hayden’s stare, I realize my birthday is only weeks away.
“Nobody knows where Adrianne and her family are. Don’t bring up APing. I don’t want to talk about this stuff ever again,” Hayden says biting the nail off the finger closest to me before staring at me with the same look that made me sink into his arms in the shadow world. When we were both seventeen and did seventeen-year-old things that make me all tingly inside. He must have picked up on how freaked out I am because right then he bolts up out of the seat on the cafeteria bench beside me and walks out of the cafeteria without even looking back, leaving me alone with my brown paper bag and my orange and my jelly-stained paper towel napkin with two lonely bites of sandwich left for company.
I want to cry. I’m friend repellent. Ally’s mad at me and so is Hayden and everything feels wrong. Everything feels like it’s changing. When I AP’d to the shadow world everything was wonderful. Weird for sure, but wonderful. Everything I ever wanted came true. Hayden was my date, we kissed at The Enchanted Island Homecoming Dance. Everything was wonderful except Mitch saving me. I wish I could have lived in the shadow world forever, especially if this is how it’s going to be from now on. I can’t wait to go back. No one would really miss me anyway, it’s not like I’m even on the radar at this school
.
I eye the clock to see how much more time I’ll have to sit all alone in the cafeteria, when I hear someone talking to me.
“Hi.”
I turn to face the not-quite familiar voice. “Oh, hey,” I say wishing I was still alone. Because the only thing worse than being a loner is being seen talking to the weird new girl. This is The Lunch of Horrors.
Wanda sits next to me. Like right next to me, in the spot where Hayden sat, just as close. Ewww. “So I’m going to tryouts after school, what about you?” she says.
“Oh, I didn’t tell my folks.” I say with a smile. It’s not exactly a lie. I never intended to tell my parents in first place since there’s no way I’m going to tryout for the school play. Me being the center of attention is too terrifying, especially since even Ally & Hayden probably won’t come to see me. And, besides, I’m not like Wanda’s best friend or anything. I didn’t tell her I would for sure try out. I don’t say anything. The idea of being this terrific actress that everyone adores is appealing in a that-will-never-happen way. Maybe finding a whole new group of friends is what I’ll have to do now that it feels like all my old friends are abandoning me.
“And I can’t miss the bus,” I add. It’s just easier to blow people off sometimes.
“You’re just afraid,” Wanda says like she knows me, which under the circumstances is as creepy as her teeny smile.
I almost choke on my gum as I take the second to the last bite of PBJ. And it’s weird because all of a sudden, now that we’re in high school, no one brings lunch to school anymore. Everyone buys. Everyone except me and Ally. I still eat my middle school PBJs. I like PBJs.
“You don’t get to talk to me like you know me. You don’t know me. Why don’t you go find some other freshman to bug,” I say, flicking my hair in a way that seems like I think I’m better than her but I don’t, I’m just not in the mood to be a whole different person today.
She looks around the cafeteria. “No one else is sitting all alone,” she says.
Well, there is that. Lunch of Horrors, like I said.
I swallow my last bite of peanut butter and jelly hard. My throat hurts as it strangles it down to my stomach. I fidget in my seat, wanting to get up but having nowhere to go. I’m so pissed at Ally and Hayden for abandoning me in the middle of lunch, leaving me with Wanda. I want to scream.
“Here, check this out,” Wanda stands up and waves her hand in the direction of the cafeteria door, like she doesn’t have a care in the world.
My eyes sweep the cafeteria as I consider actually leaving with Wanda to go check out whatever it is she thinks is so amazing, and I see Him. The 10. Ally’s talking to him right by the food line, deserted now because the bell’s about to ring. Talking. To. The. 10. He smiles at me. Me. When our eyes meet across the room I get that same feeling I did on Planet Popular. It’s a dream come true. He’s a dream come true. And even though he’s all the way on the other side of the cafeteria I feel like something is close by, something I can’t touch and it keeps me calm when I’d think I’d normally pass out.
Ally doesn’t even glance my way, but I can hardly blame her. If he makes me feel this good from far away I can only imagine what she’s feeling standing an arm length away from him. Make that, um, well now she’s a lot closer. The 10 gives Wanda a nod, but she’s too clueless to see. I can’t breathe right because a blob of peanut butter is stuck to the roof of my mouth. That, combined with The 10 in my sights makes me breathe faster forcing me to almost choke on the PBJ blob in my mouth. I wish I could describe The 10 to you but I can’t. It’s mostly things you can’t describe that make a guy a 10 anyway. It’s the way he makes you feel inside, all tingly and weird, and how you feel instantly prettier when he smiles at you and how your whole life is different after.
“Come on, you have to see this,” Wanda says, turning her back to The 10.
It’s almost impossible to turn away. I don’t want to be seen leaving with Wanda. I don’t want The 10 to think that she’s my best friend. I want him to know that Ally is. But then, he’s swarmed and it doesn’t matter at all because he couldn’t see over all the guys high-fiving him. Ally’s got to be having the best day of her life. I walk out of the cafeteria and down the hallway, half-following Wanda and half-staring at The 10 through the cafeteria windows.
“It’s okay, this is even more important than a beautiful boy,” Wanda says. The bell rings. “I’ll show you later,” she says, with a shrug. “It’s backstage.”
I spend all of Biology wondering what Wanda wants to show me. But, as the day wears on, I try to care less and less because caring means we’ve crossed over from being strangers who ride the same bus to people who talk to each other which means we’d sort of be friends, and I’m not sure I want to go there. Not yet. By the time I walk into English I so want this day to be over. I want to escape into a book. I don’t even care if it’s freaking Shakespeare. I hope the teacher assigns us an epic.
“Something...happened to your English teacher. Your regularly-scheduled English teacher,” the fourteenth substitute in as many school days says, semi-smiling at me adding, “it’s lucky for you, I’m here to fill the void.”
The Goth teacher is some rock-star wanna be. English teacher, my butt. He’s not like any of the other substitute teachers I’ve ever had, one’s that cower at loud noises and make for the door at the first sign of uprising from the worst of us––shell-shocked and retreating. No this guy is in our faces. He even has a tattoo on his hand. A star, I think, but I can’t see it completely because his long, black sleeve covers it every time I try to get a better look. There is this perfectly trimmed beard that traces his jawline, wrapping around his two o’clock shadow. He’s kind of History Channel, like someone from another time, a century a bajillion years ago. I can’t really put my finger on it and have no idea why I’m vibing that. And what’s super spooky is no one blows him any crap. Which is weirder than him, because we’ve gotten away with murder with all the other subs. They never last more than a day. We must be the most feared English class in all of Substituteland. But this guy doesn’t look scared. I wonder if he’ll be back tomorrow. They all say they will.
Maybe the weird stubble and crazy facial hair has something to do with Halloween. I can’t believe I freaking forgot my birthday until today. The haunting English teacher passes back my paper and I get an even more frightening C on my first vocabulary quiz. My parents don’t understand Cs. They don’t understand how high school is so completely freaky. If they get word my grades have gone down I’m not going to get to do anything I want this year. Even though I’m not exactly sure what I want to do in high school because there’s so many clubs and teams.
Rock-and-Roll teacher spins around and says, “And what do you desire this year, your Freshman year?” Out. Freaking. Loud. Looking right at me. I stare at the board where all the teachers have usually scrawled their name and I freeze. He hasn’t written his name up on the board. Gulp. Desire.
In order to not be such a loser, in order to stop the nightmare that is my tongue-tied self, I run through all my options in my mind. All the people I could be in high school. And I sit there, week two of freshman year, all eyeballs on me trying to answer the unanswerable. Sure, I could share with the class my greatest desire. There’s two really. APing back to the shadow world for all my answers. And, talking to The 10. Pffff. I’m not that stupid. So I go to the regular things that should be on my mind but really haven’t. Will I stay in band and play flute in the high school marching band and be that girl, or will I keep up my artistic flare and forever be the that girl. Or, will I try something new? Something no one expects. Something I’ve never tried before. Or will I be a smart aleck back at him.
“I want to tryout for the school play,” I say biting my lip afterward. I don’t know why I say it. Out. Loud. It had been days since I’d thrown away the hot pink paper and then fished it out of my garbage can. There was something about the pinkness of the paper. How it practically scr
eamed every time I tried to throw it away. So I’m that girl. Good Move.
“Indeed?” The teacher’s eyes sparkle.
Now, if I don’t make it, people will be finger-pointing for weeks. Now, I have to try out and turn into a totally different person who can actually go on stage and memorize lines. Gulp. My stomach’s all twisty-turny and my knees buckle even though I’m already sitting down.
Ally turns sideways in her chair like she’s about to come talk me out of it because there’s a best friend code. What one best friend does in high school bounces off the other. If she’s not cool, then your not cool by association. She so doesn’t want me to tryout. I can feel it in her stare. Ally can’t deal with people or being the center of attention. That’s why she runs cross country, to get away from everyone. That’s why she’s so fast. I think it has something to do with when she starved herself. But she’s over that now. I can tell she isn’t thrilled about the extra weight. She isn’t fat. She’s just normal. But, well, I can’t really explain it. She’s always, and I mean always working out.
And the substitute just strolls up to the front of the class and asks us to open to Antigone in our textbooks. Antigone. Now there’s a weird name for a girl. And just as I open to the right page, Mr. Rock-and-Roll stares as if in a trance and recites lines he knows by heart and his gaze shifts to me.
“Antigone is the girl who will rise up alone and die young,” he says.
He doesn’t take his eyes off of me. The words he speaks feel like an incantation or like he’s some sort of Goth fortuneteller or something. A chill creeps up my spine. He’s still staring. A chill slices me in two and lingers around my spine because I feel like I’ve met him. Maybe I’ve just seen him on TV or something. My mind searches for his face among all the faces I’ve seen. I writhe a little in my seat. Writhe isn’t a word I normally use, but it describes exactly what I’m doing.
“Haemon, Antigone’s dashing fiancé, chats with Ismene, her beautiful sister. Though one would have expected Haemon to go for Ismene, he inexplicably proposed to Antigone on the night of a ball. Creon is king of Thebes, bound to the duties of rule. Next to the sisters’ sits the Nurse and Queen Eurydice. Eurydice will knit until the time comes for her to go to her room and die. Finally three Guards play cards, indifferent to the tragedy before them.”
And I kind of space out here. All I hear is muffled. All I see is The 10. His words are hypnotic. I turn to see if his words have the same effect on Ally. To try and ground myself in reality because I feel like I’m kind of floating away. Not quite, here. But, Ally looks fine. She shrugs her shoulders, rolls her eyes and laughs a teeny little laugh.
“Ally, my dear, do share with the class what you find so funny?” Rock-and-Roll Teacher says.
Ally’s mortified. Her eyes go wide and beg me to come to her rescue.
“Is it that Antigone is going to have to chose between life and death that’s so hilarious?” the teacher says.
Ally doesn’t say a word and shrinks into her seat.
“Is it that Antigone is torn with grief at the inequities of society and it’s judgment? L-O-L!” He says LOL super sarcastic, like nothing is funny at all. And it isn’t funny the way he’s all over Ally. He’s super-intense and spooky.
“No,” Ally says.
“Then, do tell. Share with us the humor here. We all need a laugh,” he won’t give it a rest.
“I um, I think, um, I’m...going to,” Ally says, running out of the room.
The class bursts out laughing. Their laughs terrify me and drown out the teacher yelling at me. Blah, blah, I’m sure he says something like don’t leave my class or if you leave you’ll have detention. Or something like that. But I don’t care. Ally’s upset and she needs her best friend. Because she’s the center of attention. I run down the hall chasing Ally because that’s what best friends do. End of story. Besides, the teacher freaked me out too. His voice lulled me into a sort of sleep that had a power over me.
I follow Ally into the girls’ bathroom. She slams the stall door behind her and throws up. Over and over. I wait until she goes quiet and say, “How about we go to the nurse?”
“Nah, school’s almost over anyway. I’ll be fine,” she says.
“You don’t sound fine.”
“Roxie did you feel it?”
“Feel what?”
“The crazy way he reads, did you feel it?”
“Yeah. It was like being put to sleep or something. Like a dream.”
“So, it wasn’t just me.”
“No, I totally..”
“You girls OK?”
Ally opens the stall door and mouths the words it’s him.
Tingles shoot down my back at the sound of his voice. He’s creepy. The way he’s right here, outside the girls’ bathroom door. So close to the door he might have overheard us.
“Girls?” he says sort of taunting.
“I so don’t want to face him.” I whisper.
“Neither do I,” Ally says.
When we both do, Hayden stands in the hall just behind Rock-and-Roll Teacher, along with The 10. Just over Hayden’s shoulder someone’s standing in the principal’s office. I eye her through the office’s peek-a-boo window. I’d know that blonde hair anywhere.
“Girls, as punishment for the outburst in my class I insist that you attend tryouts tonight. You’ll have the time of your lives,” the Rock-and-Roll English teacher says, his eyes sparkle again. Weird. When he finally leaves us alone, I run across the hall to find out if Adrianne’s standing in the principal’s office and where she’s been and why her family took off in the middle of the night right before school started, and if it has anything to do with the shadows and Planet Popular, or me, and why she didn’t say a word to any of us. But I get swallowed in a sea of students. I grab a hold of one person and step around them when someone else going the other way slams into me carrying me downstream. When I finally break free I run right into The 10. My heart beats a million times a minute.
“You okay?” he says.
OMG, he’s actually talking to me and, yeah, I’m way more tingly then when he stared at me across the cafeteria. “Yes.” I say. And I’m not kidding, I can’t speak. I’ve been dreaming about what I’d actually say to a Ten if ever I saw one, and trust me yes isn’t exactly it. But there isn’t any time. I run away from The Ten, the guy that I’d like to maybe be duct taped to for the rest of my life because I have to find out what happened to Adrianne. I have to know. I run, scrambling through the office door, falling over the super-high counter that clearly separates the adults from the students and I say, “Where is she?” All hyperventilating.
“She who?”
“The blonde girl that was in here.”
“I didn’t see anyone. Did you Flo?”
“Nope.”
Really? “Oh, okay. I guess I’m just losing my mind,” I say, scrambling back out to see and maybe actually talk to The 10 again, but I run into Wanda instead.
“It’s time. You need to come check this out,” Wanda says.
“Check what out?”
“Just follow me,” she says with that teeny, most creepy smile.
I look up and down the still busy hall, searching for Hayden, The 10 and Ally. But there’s nobody I know. Since I’ve just darted around the high school like some maniac and I’m with the weird new girl I’m looking for a place to hide.
“But, I’ll miss the bus,” I say with the kind of panic only freshman possess.
“I know, but it’ll be okay,” she says.
“How do you know?”
“You’ll see,” she says. And it’s kind of irritating how calm she always is. At this point I’m so over her and my crazy English teacher I just want to go home. I don’t care if Rock-and-Roll Teacher gives me a detention and I’m grounded for my natural life. I follow her as far as the PAC stage door.
“Thanks, Wanda, but I’ve got to run,” I say.
“But tryouts are today. I heard you were trying o
ut for the play,” she says semi-insistent.
“You are? So am I,” The 10 says with a smile, jumping ahead of us through the open door and into the darkness of the empty stage.
“Yeah,” I say with what feels like a plastic smile. His kind of ragged chestnut hair is what I obsess over first before it falls over his amber eyes framed with incredible eyelashes, so incredibly hot. He’s truly gorgeous. Unlike any boy I’ve ever known. But, he’s not a boy is he. His teeth are white and his abs are chiseled. I know this because as he slides between Wanda and I, his abs find my hip. There’s barely any wiggle room at all through the PAC’s backstage door. I’m so completely dumbfounded by his smile and amazing tan that I let the fact he actually touched me go unnoticed until he disappears into the darkness. And there’s a longing in me. To see him again. Now. I can’t just leave. I rub my hip.
“Yeah, I have to go to tryouts. I forgot all about it,” I say.
Wanda giggles a teeny, tiny giggle.
I giggle a little too, until Hayden walks up beside me.
“So it’s true,” he says.
“What’s true?” I say.
“You’re trying out for the school play?” And the way he says it, its so like I’ll never make it.
“That’s right,” I say kind of embarrassed that this guy who’s supposed to be my friend is acting like this in front of Wanda. She puts her head down and walks through the backstage door. I’m left leaning against the door, propping it open.
“You of all people should have faith in me,” I say.
Hayden’s whole face looks like a question mark. I can’t freaking believe it. “There’s no way I ever would have survived Planet Popular without being some kind of an actress. When I AP’d to that shadow world, everyone treated me like I was someone else, even you. I had to play a part.”
“Listen, the shadow world? We called it Planet Popular. But...it’s. It’s bigger than that. It’s...”
“I thought you’d stood me up,” Rock-and-Roll Teacher says. I jump a little when he takes his place at my side. I didn’t notice his footsteps at all. It’s like the man just appeared by my side. All the air drains out of me when I turn to say, “No, Sir.” I never say Sir, but I’m that nervous. He slinks back into the darkness glancing at Hayden, giving him a quick up-and-down once over, liking what he sees.
“What? What is it? Tell me?” I say practically begging him to spit whatever it is out.
Hayden looks down and wrings his hands. We wait there for what feels like forever. He stays silent.
There’s something so epic between Hayden and me but it feels like a place neither of us want to be anymore. Or can’t be anymore. “Well, I’m late,” I say, stepping through the open door that latches with a loud, steely sound. I sort of hope Hayden will walk through the door and tell me he didn’t mean to get mad at lunch. Tell me what’s on his mind. But the door stays closed and cold ripples around me as I walk deeper into the darkness of the theatre toward the few faint voices inside. I scurry out of the darkness because I’m so creeped out by the feeling I’m being watched.
The creepy feeling starts to make me shake. There’s about a dozen people sitting in the first few rows of the plush new theatre seats. I pick out Wanda and The 10. But I don’t see Ally. I don’t know anyone else. I take the first seat I come to, my eyes glued on Rock-and-Roll Teacher wondering if Hayden’s right about never going back.
“Hey, my name is Andy,” The 10 says slipping down into the folding theatre seat beside me.
“Hey,” I say, stroking the red velvet seat fabric so History Channel. The seats are old-fashioned and feel decadent and expensive.
“You’re Roxie, right?” Andy says, wiggling around in his seat like he’s trying to shake a creepy feeling too.
I smile. “Have you ever been in a play before?” I get a better look at his eyes underneath his long bangs. They’re golden and gorgeous.
“Lots of times. I grew up doing commercials.”
Of course he did. Because that’s something 10s do.
“You know the one where all the kids are on a picnic and I’m the boy who sprays all the kids with Country Time Lemonade. That was me.”
And I really do remember that commercial.
“Now I’m doing BMW commercials...lots of cars and Ambercrombie.”
“What play are we trying out for?” I ask, barely getting the words out when Rock-and-Roll Teacher walks center stage and belts out lines he knows by heart into the darkness:
“Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And--like the baseless fabric of this vision--
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. ...the words of Prospero,” he says.
A few in the audience clap for his delivery. He’s good. Maybe a little too good for a substitute English teacher.
“Lords & Lasses, everything is fleeting. This building in which we sit. Your problems and triumphs. Everything. All of it will change. Your fortunes. Your bad luck, your good,” Rock-and-Roll Teacher continues, ever the buzz kill.
“Bad luck? I don’t have bad luck,” a guy in back of me says. It’s Romulus. I didn’t even recognize him when I walked into the theatre. Like I said, everything and everyone is changing.
“Of course you don’t. What do you know of it? But, now, you are in the theatre, and you will believe in luck. Every kind of luck.”
Romulus wrinkles his brow and leans back in his seat so not wanting to be here, he nods over at me.
“What happened to Doc Watson?” Andy asks.
“Who’s Doc Watson?” I whisper into Andy’s very adorable ear. I never thought ears could be adorable. But, I was wrong. Very wrong. I like being this close to him.
“Doc always directed our plays, he was an English teacher here. An institution really,” Andy whispers back. His hot breath on my neck makes my crazy day melt away.
A crash in the back of the theatre makes us all search the seats around us, looking to each other as people do to feel better about a scary thing.
“Don’t be frightened. We’ve just been negligent. The light left on for the stage ghosts was extinguished,” Mr. Rock-and-Roll says so matter-of-factly he could be telling us the cafeteria is out of hamburgers. “We won’t make that same mistake again?” he yells in the direction of the crash.
Andy looks at me and raises an eyebrow. I shoot a look back at him. His smile makes me feel beautiful. It makes me feel beautiful that someone like him smiles at me.
Rock-and-Roll teacher scales the steps to the stage and disappears into the darkness. We hear a small steely flick. A solitary light shines down on the great space that is the stage. “There, the ghost light. I’ll have a word with whoever turned it off. We have much work to do and we don’t need them getting in our way.”
“What’s your name?” Romulus says.
“I didn’t say,” he smiles back. “The name of our play is The Tempest. Have any of you read the story?”
Only Wanda raises her hand.
“Excellent, my dear. You will be my special assistant,” he says. And for the first time the always confident Wanda has a look of terror in her eye. A knowing terror.
“Come here Lass and help distribute the scripts.”
Wanda slowly walks to his side and eyes him in the way that I do when I’m mad at Mitch. Nothing can make me angrier than Mitch. She picks up the stack of folded, stapled books and stares back at him. They exchange glances as if they’re in the middle of an argument none of us can hear.
“Very good, we’ll start with you, Sir, the strapping young lad who looks like a TV commercial. I’d like you to read Prospero and I’d like you, my dear,” he points at me, “to read Ariel.”
“Ariel?
”
“She’s an airy spirit,” Rock-and-Roll Teacher says. It’s really weird he hasn’t told anyone his name.
“Cool,” Andy says.
“Yes, it would be if you weren’t lying to her all the time,” the teacher says looking at me.
And it’s too horrible to even think about. Andy lying to me. But, we’d only just met. He has to just be talking about the play. What could someone I don’t even know yet possibly have lied to me about?
Andy’s wide-eyed look makes the cold fingers of creepiness crawl over my body again.
“Just helping you both to get in character,” Rock-and-Roll Teacher says as if to answer my silent question, is Andy lying to me?
“Yes take it from page 25, after the shipwreck. Now imagine Andy, you have survived a tempest. A terrible storm at sea. Your ship split in two and the ship, lightened of its cargo and battered by the sea, turns into driftwood. This is where you will give yourself up for lost. But, the north winds are sharp and you’ve gotten to shore by clinging to wreckage and found this lovely sprite to thank and later take for granted.”
“Lovely,” Andy whispers under his breath, staring right at me.
I find my place before Andy, long enough to examine his profile. He’s most definitely a 10. After we say our lines, and I stumble on some of the History Channel words––a bunch of Dost thous and prithees, it’s clear that Prospero breaks his promise to Arial. They’re bound to each other by some sort of pact and Prospero seems like he’ll never set her free. I want to read The Tempest from cover to cover. Immediately. Only I’ll need some sort of interpreter to understand it all.
“Great!” The teacher says as I crumble inside at the way Arial’s been betrayed and lied to.
“Tryouts tomorrow,” Rock-and-Roll Teacher says. Take these script copies home tonight and find a monologue no more than a minute or two. Yes, that should be plenty. Tomorrow we’ll have you walk on stage, along with the ghosts and wow me with your talent.”
“Does this mean Doc Watson isn’t director anymore?” Andy says.
“Yes, Lad. Means you’re stuck with me. I’m afraid Doc Watson is...away.” Rock-and-Roll Teacher smiles a creepy, self-conscience smile, his teeth unnaturally whiter in the darkness of the theatre. “And the name is Janus. Mr. Janus,” he says as his smile immediately fades.
Great. We’ve got a creepy, manic-depressive teacher for a director. I grab my backpack up off the floor and sling it over my shoulder, wishing more than ever that I lived close enough to walk home to avoid the inevitable drama that the missed bus will create. Walking slow, I pull out my cell and hesitate before pressing call, deep in thought about Arial and her betrayal, the way she gets turned on like it felt my friends were turning on me. I sort of come out of my haze when I walk out the backstage door and into the overly well-lit hallway. The only two people standing there are me and Andy.
“You want a ride home?” he says like he talks to 6s all the time.
“You drive?” I say. I can’t help myself. Freshman can’t disguise their longing for total freedom. Ever.
“I’m a Junior,” he says like I should have known that already. And I should have.
“Oh.” Why would a junior, and junior who’s a 10, want to give me a ride home? “Sure. Where do you live?” I ask.
“Just a few streets down, in town. You?” Of course he lives in the quaintest, most beautiful village just a few streets away from the high school. He probably lives in a mansion.
“Oh, I’m all the way across town. It’s okay. It’s way out of your way,” I say, really wishing he’d give me a ride to avoid the drama that a call to my mom will create.
“No problem. I like to drive. It clears my head,” he says pulling his keys out of his pocket.
Why would a 10, the perfect guy, need to clear his head? What could ever be bothering a perfect guy like him? The blue and white checked BMW logo winks at me from his silver key chain. “Ah, okay. I guess,” I say.
“Great,” he says and we both walk down the linoleum floored hallway, its walls lined on either side with white tiles. I notice every inch of our walk to the parking lot because the perfect guy with the perfect car is driving me home. I scan the hallway for someone else, anyone else. I don’t even care if it’s Wanda. Because I want someone to see this. But, not a soul is around. Not even a teacher. We walk out of the deserted building and he holds the door to the parking lot open for me.
“Hey Drew. Missed you at practice bro,” a guy covered in grass stains and a red & white football jersey passes us on his way to the locker rooms.
“Later,” Andy says.
“Practice?” I ask. Drew. I like that name.
“Yeah,” Andy says, rubbing the back of his neck. A small wind blows the faintest smell of his aftershave my way. I take a deep breath. He looks up at the overcast sky.
A tingly feeling starts at my toes. The feeling I got in the shadow world when I got everything I always wanted. I was one of the peacocks. But, all of that seems so lame standing here in the real world with Andy driving me home, a whole year later. Peacocks and Dodos and Planet Popular. I’m getting a ride home from The 10, who is the rarest of animals––a football playing actor. OMG, Ally will never believe this. I reach down for my phone and text her, 10s exist. I BLV U.
“So what’s your favorite part?” he says, unlocking my side of his baby blue convertible. He opens my door. I almost faint. No guy has ever opened a car door for me. Not in this world. Not in the for-real world. I think about Hayden opening the limo door for me when we were seventeen, on Planet Popular. When I was older than Andy. I shiver.
I’m not sure how close I can get to anyone right now because of how Hayden makes me so angry the way he talked to me today. Especially after we had held hands. What a big deal it was that Hayden cared enough about me to reach out for me while we sat on our sofa in our family room while we watched one of the movies he brought over while my mom and dad walked in on their way to the workroom where Mom would check on the laundry and Dad remembered he had a project to do.
I leaf through the script trying to put Hayden out of my mind.
“If you’re Arial, and I get Prospero, then we’ll spend lots of time together, rehearsing our lines,” he smiles and puts a hand on my thigh.
“That would be fun,” I say. Even though his hand is on my leg, I feel his touch in the small of my back. I’m going to pass out. I’m so never going to wash these jeans again. I have a new lucky outfit.
Andy smiles and winks at me then starts the car and his music blasts out of the speakers. I can’t believe he likes Trance music too. We start talking about bands and favorite songs and before I know it we’re at my house. I don’t really remember telling him where I live as I jabber away in my driveway. I don’t even know I’m home and he’s just listening. Hayden kind of grimaces when I talk about stuff like he’s sick of my voice. And it’s just amazing to have someone who so obviously loves to talk to me. Who doesn’t want to get away the first chance he gets. And then I get quiet because I don’t want to blow it like I somehow did with Hayden. I don’t want to do the thing I must have done to Hayden to make him flip the switch from liking me to wanting to run away.
“Need a ride home tomorrow after tryouts tomorrow?” he says looking out from under his auburn bangs.
“Sure.” No girl could say no to that. I reach down to pick up my backpack and open the door. I fling my backpack over my shoulder with a smile and shut the door with my butt.
Andy rolls down the window and says, “See ya tomorrow.”
And it’s like I’m standing in Miami on an August day, not in the suburbs of Chicago in the coldest September on record. My face hot from the way Andy makes me smile in a way that I know that he’ll fill my dreams.
Mom’s at the front door before Andy pulls out of our driveway.
“Who’s that boy?” she says.
“He’s not a boy, Mom.” I say scooting past her into the house.
She hugs herself when a blast of cold air comes on hard and fast.
There’s a big difference between not-quite-fourteen and sixteen.
“Why’d you miss the bus?” she asks, almost accusingly. She closes the front door that ends up slamming in the force of the wind.
I pray that Andy didn’t see my helicopter mom.
GET THE SHADOW SERIES PLAYLIST, DREAM CAST, TRAILERS AND LINKS TO BUY THE BOOKS HERE!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Laura loves writing about enchanted road trips, birthday gifts that are out of this world, and alien romance while eating lots of popcorn. She lives with her hubby, and dog Oso, in their tree house on the coast of central California not far from her two grown daughters who love climbing trees as much as she does. Laura is the author of Winnemucca, a small-town fairy tale inspired by her life-long love of a little-known town, Avenal, CA, and her equal love of enchanted teenage road trips. 13 on Halloween, a hilarious look at a girl who gets a birthday gift that’s literally out of this world, is book 1 in the Shadow Series. Laura’s latest release, Transfer Student, is an intergalactic beauty and the geek sci-fi romance and the first book in the Starjump Series. Book 2 of the Shadow series, will release in September 2012. Drop her a line at elliwrite [at] yahoo [dot] com.
To read more about Laura’s books visit: www.Laurasmagicday.worpress.com
Twitter: @Laurawriting
And on FACEBOOK
Acknowledgements
A big thanks to Joe! Much love to my wonderful daughters who gave me so many special Halloweens! Big hugs to Katie and Emily for the awesome doodles of Roxy Speak! And to Rachel for being such a great big sister. I love you so much.
Thanks for giving 13 ON HALLOWEEN a read! You are the reason I write.
As I type, I’m getting ready to go back to Chicago for my 30th high school reunion. Oakdale is a fictional place that combines the two towns where I grew up in Illinois. I want to give shout outs to life-long friends, most I met in kindergarten, Pasie Anos Gregory, Laurie Ewing Flynn, Diane Farretta, Laura Herman Winter, Leslie Herman Resis, Susan Silver Hagstrom, Cindy Grubart, Allyson Regas, Tony Pasin, Ken Wagner, Renee Stach, Peggy Shannon, and Diane Witz Schwitz. Another shout out to The Red Devils at HTHSC, especially Karen Jones Fiascone, Elizabeth Bell Elisha, Laurel Guerkink Carignan and Kim Yeutter Bottimore, and Lynn Compton Stoller the Fun Life Guys especially Keith Chval, and my AFS buddies: Leslie Arnold Sulla, Katy Sears, Jeff Andreason, Gina Pepich Andreason, Bob Gear, Tim Bates, Anne Throckmorton Hyland, Fred Brooke, John Rosenberg, Heather Crombie, Molly Devine, Bob Gear, Marco Balich, Allison Duff and Wendy Spreenberg. I’d also like to thank Ms. Higas’s second-third grade split class at Walter Colton School in Monterey, CA for their inspiration.
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