Would it always be this way? Would I be getting printouts in the mail in ten years, age progressed to make Jenna look like she was twenty-five? Maybe I would never know what happened to her.
###
When I arrived at school on Friday, an electrical truck was parked in front. Workmen were walking around with ladders, assessing lights. The 'how many people does it take to screw in a lightbulb?' joke kept popping into my head.
I heard them talking to McPherson about going down to the control panels in the basement, but that they'd have to come back later with better equipment. McPherson was ringing his hands, asking about insurance protocol.
I waited in the commons for Theo before homeroom. We had planned on quizzing each other for Spanish, but Theo didn't show. I flipped through my flashcards absently, hoping I was prepared enough, and wondered when she'd get there.
A few minutes before the bell rang, my phone beeped a text alert. It was Theo, saying, I'm not coming to school, I'm sick. Doctor's office. Sorry! Hope test goes okay. Theo texted novels the same way I did. She had been complaining of the sniffles and a sore throat yesterday, I recalled. I sent her a get well text back and went to class.
I missed Theo in gym, where we were twisting into yoga poses, led by a college instructor to new age music. Lainey's flexibility made me jealous as I wobbled from one pose to another. She and Madison pretended I didn't exist, which was a relief. I wondered if her parents had coached her on ways to avoid retaliation for my still-bruised nose.
In art, the empty seat that Theo usually occupied made me lonely. I felt selfish depending on another person so much for companionship, but it had helped so much to pull me out of my introverted state.
Theo was so different from Jenna in so many ways, but we had already become quite close friends when I wasn't paying attention. Part of me felt like I was betraying Jenna by moving on, but the other part argued that perhaps she had betrayed me.
I just wished I knew what fate had befallen her. The more time that passed, the smaller the chance that I'd ever see her again.
Art class itself had taken on a relaxing atmosphere. We were still deep in free painting, and now that I didn’t take my attempts at art so seriously, I was actually enjoying myself.
I picked up my brush and dipped the end in brown paint, working on a ropey-looking horse's tail. In actuality it looked more like a camel than a horse.
Henry seemed tense, shifting around in his seat. Without Theo beside me, I didn't check myself in daydreaming in his direction. He had called me beautiful, after all. If only his affection wasn't so difficult to figure out.
Twenty minutes into the hour-long class, he got up and asked Ms. Vore for hallway permission. Since I always involuntarily glanced at him whenever he moved, I gazed up at him and was surprised to see him staring intently at me. Either me, or the poster behind me of the talking pencil. He didn't smile like he normally did when our eyes met.
What was going on with him?
He left the room, and didn't come back. I couldn't help checking the clock as the minutes ticked by. Ms. Vore was too busy helping other students with their paintings to notice.
Out of nowhere, the fire alarm started blaring. It was so loud my ears hurt, and I dropped the paintbrush in my rush to cover them. The muddy paint made a brown splotch on the floor.
"Okay, everybody, let's go," Ms. Vore said calmly, already standing at the door. Everyone lined up, shuffling out into the hall. Our teacher remained unruffled, although I saw her push her glasses up her nose and it reminded me of Theo.
I followed the quiet procession of strangely somber kids. I was the last in line since I sat in the back corner. We headed down the hall towards the outside exit in a single file line.
Ariel...Ariel...
Someone was calling my name again. The voice came from the opposite side of the hall, farther into the school. The fire alarm was still blaring, red lights flashing, yet I could hear my name clearly. The strange urge to follow an invisible path manifested again, like it had the night I'd spied on McPherson.
I suddenly had to find Henry. He could be in danger.
I ran away from the line of my classmates. Ms. Vore didn't notice me because she was already at the exit. I hoped I could find him fast and get out. I had no idea what had caused the fire alarm to go off, but it couldn't be good.
CHAPTER 24
FARTHER INTO THE school, the electricity suddenly went out. I froze, skidding to a stop and almost falling over. Of course today would be the day I didn't wear sneakers, the impracticality of the heeled boots on my feet never occurring to me.
The red emergency backups came on, but then they shorted out too, and I was left in soupy, gray darkness. Is that you, Alyssa, or the school's cheap budget?
Even though I had spent many months in Hawthorne's halls, I became lost. The invisible tugging feeling weakened and disappeaered. I didn't know which way to turn. Everything felt too real, my vision wobbly and at the same time too sharp in the dark, like watching a documentary.
I spun around, not knowing where I was. Why did I insist on being so impulsive? I patted my pockets for my phone, and realized I had left it back in the art room. Panic seized me, my heart beating wildly, and felt as though I would jump out of my skin.
I crept down the hall, even though I had the urge to run. Shadows had taken on form, like living things. It was as if the insides of the school had changed, warped. Hallways seemed different. Common landmarks had lost their meaning.
I turned a corner and bumped hard into someone. I started to fall. Whoever it was grabbed my forearms and lifted me up before I hit the ground.
"Careful," a familiar male voice said, and I recognized with immediate relief who it was.
"Henry," I moaned. It came out more passionate than I intended.
"Ariel?" he asked with concern, looking into my face. I had no idea how he could see me in the dark. But then I realized I could see his face now, too, more familiar than my own. The red emergency lights were back on. So it had been ghost tampering.
"You're not supposed to be here," he said softly. Neither are you, I thought immediately, but did not say. "You're going to get in trouble."
A blast of fire erupted from my left. Orange flames were shooting out around the basement access door. Henry grabbed my hand and we rushed past it, heat searing our faces. I quickly knew where I was again as we passed my homeroom, and couldn't believe I would have ever gotten so lost. There was another fire in a classroom to our right, smoke pouring out into the hall and stinging my eyes.
We burst out through the vestibule and outside. The afternoon sun stabbed my eyes. Students and teachers covered the parking lot and lawn, a chorus of voices talking on cell phones and with each other. A fire truck was parked in front and firemen in yellow reflective jackets were lining up to go inside. They staked out the area, communicating with one another on walkie-talkies.
McPherson spotted us and began stomping up the stairs, face purple with fury. Henry dropped my hand without looking down, leaving it empty. I twisted my hands together beneath my chin.
"And so the trouble begins," he whispered under his breath.
"What the hell were you doing still inside?" McPherson hissed, looking at Henry. Then he turned his attention to me and glared. I resisted the urge to cower. McPherson's eyebrows were trying to meet his mustache. I didn't know that it was actually possible for a person's face to be that color. "What a surprise that you of all people would be caught where she shouldn't be."
I didn't like the implication.
Henry stepped forward. "If you really need to discuss this further, you can speak to my father. You have his number, correct? Or do you need his card?" He had affected an arrogant, snotty tone, one I'd only heard briefly before at the orphanage. It both impressed and confused me.
McPherson stood still as a statue, for once at a loss for words. Henry placed his hands on my shoulders, leading me down the stairs and into the
crowd.
"Walk over by that tree, there's an empty spot," he whispered in my ear. I melted a little, feeling his breath on my neck.
"I didn't need you to save me," I said finally when we were out in the crowd. But he wasn't paying attention to me, too distracted by some unspoken thing. I stared at him, at the face I had secretly studied countless times. I knew his right nostril was a fraction bigger than his left one, and one of his canine teeth had a small chip. And I could tell he was keeping something from me.
"What did you have to do with the fire?" Of course, it made perfectly logical sense now that I said it. He had plenty of time to set the fires after he left class.
"I didn't have anything to do with this, Ariel," he said, but his voice was too flat and toneless. He wasn't as good of an actor as he thought he was, and it didn't help that he couldn't look at me, still gazing off into the sea of students. The openness that was normally all him had disappeared.
"What's the matter with you?" I asked, peering again at his face, trying to catch his eyes.
"There's nothing," he said. "I have to go."
He finally looked into my eyes, and his expression softened. The change was very subtle, but having paid so much attention to him, I saw it instantly. He tilted his head, taking me in.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
Now that he mentioned it, I was starting to feel really sick. My throat was sore and I could hardly breathe through my still-sensitive nose. In the sun, I could barely keep my eyes open, and they were watering like I had allergies.
"Actually, I feel sort of crappy," I admitted. "I didn't think I inhaled that much smoke..."
"It all happened so fast, you probably didn't realize." He looked conflicted for a moment, emotions playing on his features. "Well...take care of yourself," he said cryptically, and left me behind as he became one of the crowd.
His reason for abandoning me alluded me, and as I squinted in the afternoon sun, I felt sadness and rejection threaten to swallow me. Why would he leave? It reminded me painfully of Jenna's transformation. I didn't think I'd done anything to upset him, either. Maybe he was just worried about the fire, or upset about my running into foolish danger, even if he didn't know it was for him.
He was just freaked out, I assured myself. Regular Henry would return soon, the one that I knew, the one that I'd glimpsed when he'd assessed me.
The firemen had headed inside while I was trying to decode Henry. Smoke was billowing out of the front windows where we had been a few minutes earlier. I watched as the spray from their hoses doused the impending blaze.
I wandered around and found Ms. Vore's class fairly easily, near a plowed pile of aging snow. I hoped my absence had not been noticed, but I couldn't tell for sure.
The fires didn't spread, and soon the smoke tapered off. After the fires had been put out, we were allowed ten minutes to go in and get our things, as long as we stayed with our teachers.
School was supposed to be dismissed a few minutes earlier, but in the confusion no one had said anything. Parents were showing up scared, worried about bomb threats and phantom explosions.
I went inside to get my backpack. Henry was nowhere to be found; his books were already gone. I was feeling progressively worse, both physically and mentally, with all the questions running through my head. McPherson was wandering around doing damage control out in the hall; the sound of his voice made me anxious, like I was about to be captured.
As I slung my bag over my shoulders and tried to leave the classroom, Lainey stuck her arm out, blocking the exit. I hadn't even realized she was in the room.
"I'm only going to tell you this once," she said, her voice low and steady. "It's silly that I have to tell you, because I thought I'd already made myself clear. Leave Henry alone."
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me," she spat, showing every perfect, shiny-enameled white tooth in her mouth as she snarled. "You are not one of us. You don't belong. Obviously, even Jenna realized it when she dumped you."
I could have slapped her, but I clenched my hasty fists instead. What if he doesn't want you? My mind screamed. But I was not brave enough to say it. I just nodded meekly and let her words hang in the air, ashamed of myself.
"Good. Because next time, your nose won't be the only thing that gets broken," Lainey hissed.
For a moment, it almost looked as if Lainey was going to spit on me, but she turned and walked away, her heels clicking loudly down the hall.
The sobs trapped in my chest made it harder to breathe. I realized that Lainey scared me, something I had never really put together before. She had already broken my nose and gotten away with it. What else would she do?
Ms. Vore came back into the classroom then and saw me in my pathetic state.
"You look like you're about to pass out, Ariel," she said, steadying my limp shoulders with her hands.
"Just the smoke," I said, looking away and sniffling as my nose started to run. It must have looked like I was tearing up, even though it was due to whatever was wreaking havoc with my sinuses.
"How about I walk you out?" she suggested softly. I nodded. She grabbed a patterned bag full of sketchbooks from the back of her chair and slung it on her hip, flipping off the classroom light.
"How is Theo doing?" I asked as we walked.
"She's all right. She has the flu, and her dad's taking care of her since he works from home," she explained, tucking her short brown hair behind her ears.
"Theo told me about him. He lives down our street, right? What does he do?"
"He makes wooden sculptures and sells them online," she said, shrugging. "It's a living. Anyway, I think you might want to head to the doctor yourself, honey. You look like you've got the flu, too."
I groaned and palmed my face. Of course, I was coming down with the flu. "I don't know why I didn't think about that. We spend so much time together now..."
"I've noticed that," she said. "I wanted to tell you I'm really grateful that you took her under your wing." It didn't seem that way to me, at all. As far as I was concerned, Theo had saved me.
"She was really depressed for a while, especially before we moved out here," she explained. "And in the meantime I thought I was moving here for her benefit. I'm just really glad she made such a good friend."
We continued walking through the hall silently. I just wanted to be at home and sleep, but I tried to keep up. It meant a lot to have a friend's parent actually like me, and not think I was either a bad influence or roadkill.
"I know it wasn't very fair of me to call you out for looking at your boyfriend," she said out of the blue. I had nearly forgotten the incident in the months since, but I looked at her, neglecting to correct the "boyfriend" part.
Her face was solemn. "It's just that you have vision, and if you only stop yourself from being distracted by silly school stuff, you'll go far. I know that's easy for me to say, that it all will pass, but it will, even though the easiest thing to do sometimes is to get caught up in it."
"My art isn't exactly good," I countered shyly. "Or really, even art."
"Maybe you won't win any awards anytime soon," she conceded. "But you do have an eye for seeing things in a new perspective."
We reached the front doors of the school, where the firemen were still talking to McPherson and his secretary. The gleaming red fire trucks idled outside, while a group of men wrapped up the spent hoses. I was not in the mood to have to walk home, but I braced myself.
"Do you need a ride?" she offered. I nodded, grateful. I was already sweating through my coat and I shifted uncomfortably.
I didn't remember much of the ride home, trying my best just to stay alert. Vore seemed happy to do most of the talking, telling me more about how much she enjoyed teaching. When we pulled into my driveway, I wobbled out of her car.
"Tell Theo I said feel better," I told her. "I've already said it a few times, but once more won't hurt. And...thank you." She nodded, smiling, and pulled into her
own driveway.
I walked in through the front door, not able to make myself go around the back, and chucked my backpack. I rubbed my temples, which were throbbing in time to music on TV.
Hugh came out of the den with a book in his hand. "What's up?" he asked. "No more sports incidents, I hope."
"I think I have the flu," I groaned. I swayed on my feet and headed for the couch, pulling the quilt on top of me and yanking it up to my chin. I still had my boots on.
Hugh came back in with the thermometer. I started to tell him about the fire at school, but the words came out like gibberish.
"Don't try to talk. Just rest," he instructed. The thermometer beeped its jaunty little digital tune.
He was more concerned when he saw the 103.9 fever, reading it off with a serious grimace. He lay a cold washcloth on my forehead, and next I was aware, he was on the phone with the pediatrician.
"Doc said if your fever doesn't go down significantly tonight we need to go to urgent care."
"Hugh, no, enough hospitals—" I groaned, pressing the now warm washcloth over my eyes.
"Just take this Tylenol and hope," he commanded.
He always got very nervous when I was even the least bit sick, ever since I was a little girl. I was too uncomfortable to process anymore, so I closed my eyes. Burrowing under the blankets, my mind became a peaceful blank sheet.
###
My fever dropped a little overnight, but it was still holding steady over 101.5. I felt very warm, instead of the chill a fever often brings, and alternated throwing the covers off and yanking them back on me. I hated being cold when I had the flu; it made my skin prickle.
In the morning, I stayed parked on the couch. My head was so stuffy I felt like I was in another world, and my skin burned all over. Sneezes kept coming and my throat hurt like crazy. I watched morning cartoons and then an onslaught of infomercials. I never realized just how many gadgets were created for the sole purpose of cutting up vegetables. Chopping carrots didn't seem that hard.
Claire came in every once in a while to monitor my fever. Between this and my nose, I had given them too much to worry about lately.
"Am I dead yet?" I asked, coughing. My lungs felt as though they were full of nettles and thorns. I waited for the taste of blood.