"You can't drive, can you?" Gordon opened the door to a battered dark red truck. I shook my head. "Well, you can learn. Coach Kagin does driving lessons after school. Nothing like learning on a thing with proper gears. They don't make them like this any more."
The engine's noise was loud, and shuddered at the base of my teeth. I'd taken the pills with a glass of water, two and then one, or at least I thought I had. I cleared my head.
"I could learn," I echoed. Take a road trip into Seattle. Knock on Mom's door. And maybe never come back here again.
Do they give out driver's licenses to crazy people?
"Sounds good." Gordon looked across at me. "The student office has the red roof across the quad. You got the directions?"
"Yes."
"And the counselor's name's Melissa Enn. Your appointment's at twelve. Have you got your schedule?"
"Yes."
Mom never talked on and on about everything I ought to be doing. I didn't think I liked it, but then, I'd never had it even when the social workers got their hands on me. And besides, I'd made up my mind about this place.
"Okay. We're here." The school was a collection of square buildings painted in an interesting shade of puce. Dusty paths ran between them like the trails of veins concealed by sunburned skin. "You could walk while the weather's still warm. Before you have your license. We'll talk about the route on the way back."
I took up my bag, all the books I wanted to take familiarly heavy.
"You don't need all those," he repeated.
"Yes, I do."
"I'll pick you up at half past. Don't be late," Gordon said. "Take care."
The truck left the dirt carpark, trailed by smoke behind its wheels.
Another day, another new school. If I don't send you to school, they'll notice and they'll take you away from me. I'd stopped going after I was tall enough to pass as out of it. I wandered down toward the secretary's building, checking again and again with the map and testing the ways of turning it. The first time you see a place you never see it in the same order you see ever afterward: everything's topsy-turvy and upside down or sideways, and it takes a while before it's in your head like a maze with the right things pointing upwards.
Something bumped into me, and almost made me fall.
"Heya! I'm Imogen here, daring girl student reporter for the Forks High School Times! You must be the new guy, Chief Swan's son! I'm the welcoming committee—kind of—and I was wondering if I could get an interview with you—'cause, y'know, everything—and it's a slow news town anyway—"
She was a short red-haired girl, and she was holding onto my arm like a leech. There was a chess piece around her neck on a length of silver wire, a white knight.
"Don't touch me."
You can't hit people and want to hurt them; because that way you do hurt them, now you're tall, and that's bad.
I wrenched myself free.
"Aww, c'mon!" the knight-girl carried on. "It's all over town and it'd be over heaps of newspapers if'n only you weren't a minor! Your mom kidnapped you from Chief Swan for twelve years, you can't say that's not news! Any hot gossip for the papers? —Or, heck, I'm sorry, I guess it must've been rough on you, I could just show you to your classes and stuff—" She stretched out a hand again.
"Leave me alone," I said again. "You look—rotten. Rotting. Go jump off a bridge—stumble into a speeding truck and smashed glass ground over your broken bones—like your empty skull lying hollow on the road—" This time she whirled away, letting go quickly, crumpled and silent before she turned away.
"Man, he's totally creepy beyond all icky creeps ever," I overheard from her, and that was okay. When I stared like that and spoke of things like that I made people turn away, and it seemed the pills hadn't made it stop yet. I might have to get used to living without so many things, as long as the medicines worked.
Other people stared, and there were still only a few people scattered far away from each other that it should have been easy for me to deal with. I don't like large crowds, and I know the lists of the things I don't like. I passed by a training field; a tall girl wearing shorts and an unusually ferocious expression was yelling at a soccer team.
"What're we going to do at the county match on Tuesday, girls?"
"Crush them?"
"Louder!"
"Crush them!"
"And?"
"Crush them and maim them and hear the lamentations of their cheerleaders, for that is the point of life!"
"That's it! Forks High Girls' Soccer Team, go forth and strike fear into the hearts of our rivals!"
Over on the other side of the quadrangle, there was a boys' football team doing what seemed to be exactly the same thing. A tall black boy yelled them through exercises.
"Cordoba, I don't care if you think you're busting a knee, let me see hustle! Willow, quit staring at the trees and show me some pushups! Beauregard, front and centre! Get ready to show Allyer what we got! Saioji, move it!
"You know how many matches the girls' team won this year? Four. Are we gonna be beaten by Dosan's bunch of girls? Hell, no! We're going to take Allyer, and we're going to crush them! Hear me?"
"Crush them!"
The sound was remarkably like the same on the other side.
"'Scuse me," broke in one of the boys, looking at me. "I've got to go, Anders. Show Xavier Swan around the school." He smiled at me; I didn't return it. "You're Xavier, right? It's easy to tell a new face around here. I'm Cordoba. My folks only moved in three years ago."
The other boys on the team were watching.
—Don't let them pay attention to you, Xavier, stay in the background, if they watch you too long he'll come and take you away from me—
But the reason for Mom saying that didn't exist any more.
"Valerie Cordoba," another boy clarified. There was a snicker among them. The guide stepped over, brushing grass and dark brown dirt off his sweatshirt. He had a squarish face below dark cornrows, a flat nose and even-set brown eyes.
"Call me Val." He jerked a thumb over to the building I already knew was the secretary's. "Have you been to Bartman's yet?" His voice was quiet and slow, and thankfully calm as his face.
Rachel Bartman handed me a folder overflowing with papers, class lists and schedules and a map of the school with the routes to and from in pink and green highlighter.
"Everybody says Chief Swan's the best police chief this town's had," she said. "Welcome to the school, Xavier. I hope you'll like it here." She stared as if I was about to grow a creature's claws. "Valerie's our Vice President of the student council. He'll guide you on your way." Her eyes shone as if she was a martyr earning a crown.
It's easy enough to say nothing.
"Don't talk much, do you?" Val said. "I'm like that too, when I'm not showing people around. Cafeteria, biology labs, plant nursery, English and History."
"So I understand," I said.
"And here's the lockers. You've probably got a key there." He stood over me, waiting; I produced it easily and went for the number.
"—For goodness' sake, Erin! You've got to stand up for yourself! Grow a spine already! Now you listen to me, Erin, you don't take no for an answer—" A red-haired girl, shorter than the first one to find me but with a much louder voice, waved a finger up at a fair-haired girl only slightly taller than she was. I thought I'd probably seen the first girl before, out on the soccer field in the back; she wore the uniform. "You face up to the bullies, and what do you say? You say, leave me alone."
"Maggie, it's f-fine...really..." The other girl brushed a lock of her long hair from a pimpled face, stuttering.
"No, that won't do, Erin! Are you a mouse or a woman? Stand up to people and take it into your own hands! Learn how to say no and mean it!"
"N-no..."
"Not like that!"
"No?"
"Just follow my advice and stand up to yourself! Say it, just like I told you to do!"
"Maggie, it's Val behind you...and the new boy. See you in Natural Science class." The fair girl darted off like a silverfish, smiling quickly at the two of us as she passed.
The red-haired girl with the face like a trained bulldog stared up at us. "Maggie Fenton. Student Council President." She stuck out a hand formally as if she wanted me to shake it. "Val's my Vice, and a good one. Shown everywhere?" She wrested the highlighted map out of my hands. "Looks like it—all the buildings, all the classes in order—double English—appointment—Independent Living—" She whirled through it all like a short hurricane. "Erin Aird's in your Biology class—Ms Harper's—she's a bit shy. Erin, not Ms Harper. Skipped two grades. The Council tries to keep a registry of students interested in tutoring—when they remember to update—if you need—"
"I won't."
"It's halfway through the term. You'll need to catch up at least—" Maggie said, eyeing me suspiciously.
I liked arriving late through; the teachers let you sit in the back and read to catch up, and leave you alone for quite a long time.
"So, Val, make sure Xavier knows he can find help with the Council—"
"Going now, Maggie. Got to get to class."
"You don't need to walk me there," I pointed out to Valerie.
"All right," he said in that easy voice. "They'll get used to you. And you'll get used to Maggie bursting blood vessels every now and then."
"What about Imogen?" I asked. "The chess necklace." I wasn't sure why I bothered.
"Im's great. Not one person in the school doesn't like her," Val said. "Did she meet you?"
"Yes."
I'd found the classroom; past time to go in and read. There were lots of people who didn't like me, and if it made Val leave me alone, that was a bonus. I just didn't like the idea of the boys' football team defending the daring girl reporter's honour and deciding nothing would be more fun than punching the creep. They can go after you even while you're trying to hide from them.
English poetry on photocopied sheets, structure of the novel, a Jane Austen to read. Mom showed me Mansfield Park; I liked how Fanny liked to read alone, but I hated how soppy she was. Sense and sensibility. Sensibility, older meaning: the power of sensation, empathy, feelings.
I walked across to Ms Enn's office, though again people kept staring. I had a yellow pill; I could take that if I wanted to feel dead. And new books to read, if the photocopies counted.
Melissa Enn was a tall woman with flame-red hair, who favoured a heavy necklace decorated with feathers and a paisley shirt and skirt that echoed the same design. Long red nails held a scarlet notebook; rough light brown hands waved through the air.
"Go ahead. Sit down, Mister Swan." I moved a box of disarranged papers off her chair. "Custody battle, wasn't it? Chief Swan sent over all the papers. Mind if I have a smoke?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Your mom kidnapped you for—what was it? Eleven years?" Her eyes glinted a deep blue like the light through tinted glass.
"I wanted to be with my mother."
"That's not how the courts put it, is it now, Mister Swan?"
"Applying the Bonfield best interests test the court appoints custody to Gordon Swan, in accordance with the earlier decision. Conditions of neglect and mental abuse satisfied. Catalina Swan is unfit."
"Someone's got a memory on them," Ms Enn said. "And your medical report?"
"DSM-IV. Section two-ninety-five point seven-zero, see also two-ninety-seven point one. Also, I'm very antisocial. Prescribed, three yellows and two blacks, morning and night." I'd read what they were saying about me and the holes in my brain. Thinned-out spots where the mesolimbic pathway narrows; if human sight could magnify it might look like a silver-red tree eaten away into rags.
You're still young; it's not gone too far. It's a moderate prescription. You have every chance to lead a normal life.
Why would anyone want to lead a normal life?
"So that's what's prescribed," Ms Enn said, "but what are you taking?"
"Only two and one. Otherwise I stop dreaming and everything turns grey." Her voice was grey itself, but she probably couldn't help that.
"Take your proper medications. Those should make you less defiant, for one thing."
Don't be ridiculous, I can't live without dreaming. But I told her what she wanted to hear. Dusty filing cabinet; too many papers, many smoke-yellowed; halfway-full ashtray; picture frame lodged halfway behind the cabinet and nail hanging loose on the wall above.
"Good boy," Ms Enn said, adding treacle to the grey, tapping her nails on notebook and smoking cigarette. "Tell me about your life with your mother."
"We were happy."
I didn't love her enough, because how else could I have failed to take care of her?
"Then she went off to a room with nice white padded walls."
"Grey, actually."
Twenty-seven Auburn, room one-eighty-two. Hospice forty-five minutes out of Seattle. I'd be physically closer if I'd insisted on staying in foster care. But the die was cast.
"Picked up by welfare. How did that make you feel, Mister Swan?"
A name is a name is a name has infinite meanings; but most times I hadn't been Swan. Mom changed surnames, and then I'd done it too after she started to leave. Sometimes I hadn't even been Xavier.
"Unhappy." She left blood-red lipstick on the white end of her smoke.
"Describe your relationship with your father."
I supposed I was talking to a stone wall of a sort. She was tapping her nails again, watching the filing cabinet behind me.
"Unfamiliar?"
"You know, the stats show that people like you have fifteen years less to live," she said. "Ten percent suicide rate. About the same chance of making it to college. I'll go for the counselor's question again—how does that make you feel?"
"My mother has a doctorate," I said. She'd read it to me, explaining everything in it: thin blue book unprofessionally bound and typed instead of printed, title page ripped apart. She married when she graduated.
"Your mother's compos mentis is distinctly non. And what do you want to have?" The red nails drummed a bored pattern, like bleeding flies buzzing around in circles. The ceiling was fly-spotted. I could see black shadow gathered on Ms Enn's face that wasn't—strictly speaking—there from the light, as if five-eighths of the woman was something hopelessly concealed below a shapeless void; but that sight would not turn out to be real.
"How should I know?" I wrenched my mind away from her shadow. Whirlpools, lines of Christina Rossetti on the photocopies; I joined flyspots together on the walls in prisms. Who'd like telling a complete stranger everything? A bruised reed shall he not break.
"You think you're some kind of tough nut, Mister Swan," Ms Enn said. She blew out grey smoke that made me cough, wiping a sleeve across my face. "The county pays me to sit here regardless of what you say or don't."
I couldn't see an answer to that that she'd want to hear.
"I know for a fact you've landed in my Independent Living class. Walk down with me and have a seat with the other retards."
—
Bathroom Etiquette.
Ms Enn read from papers in a grey, slow monotone. Sometimes she explained it over again to the two in the front row, a boy and a girl who didn't speak well. I sat in the back, next to the girl in the wheelchair.
This is...somewhat insulting.
Click, click, click. There was keyboard and screen on the girl's lap; she moved a small, stiff hand back and forth.
The simplest structure of any story is a plain chain of causative events following in chronological and logical order, I read. But this is not the only way of the story for life is a whirl and welter of jumbled tangled events and as the lives of the characters become interwoven it is expected that the reader will eventually receive events in the same achronological order as in reality and unmask along with those one has come to feel for and understand...
Click, stop. Loud click. Tap, tap. Stop.
I looked up.
MS ENN TEACHES LIKE A WILD BABOON IN A CHINA SHOP, DOESN'T SHE? said the screen, tilted across and down.
I decided to scribble back on one of the margins. Yes.
YOU KNOW HOW SHE INTRODUCED THIS CLASS? WELCOME TO INDEPENDENT LIVING, NOT THAT ANY OF YOU EVER WILL, BUT GOD HELP ME I'M PAID BY THE COUNTY TO LET YOU KNOW ABOUT THE BASIC LIFE SKILLS YOUR PARENTS COULDN'T TEACH YOU.
SO WHAT ARE YOU IN HERE FOR? She jerked her hand to herself.
Congenital lunacy.
I'M THE ONLY CYBORG IN FORKS. She jabbed at her keyboard. The right side of her face was dragged down with muscle spasms, like melting wax. PENTIUM-3 CPU. LIQUID CRYSTAL IPS DISPLAY. INSTANT SILICON POWER TRANSFER. MEGA BATTERIES UNDER THE SEAT.
I read a novel like that once.
ACTUALLY IT'S CEREBRAL PALSY. MY DAD BUILT THIS RIG, BUT I PROGRAM IT. JANSEN MECHANICALS. I'M JENESSA. WHO'RE YOU ANYWAY?
X.Unknown quantities.
OH, I GOT IT NOW, CHIEF SWAN'S KID.
I'd rather not be. She typed faster than I could scribble back; the words came up on her screen after only a couple of letters.
IT'S THAT KIND OF TOWN. EVERYONE'S UP IN EVERYONE'S BUSINESS. GET MY DAD TO TELL YOU STORIES SOMETIME. OR DON'T IF YOU LIKE HAVING EARS.
I didn't say I'd be here long.
IT'S A GOOD TOWN. JANSENS FOUNDED IT. PARTLY, ANYWAY. GREAT-GRANDAD ELIAS AND GREAT-AUNT PHOEBE AND GRANDAD HERBERT.
I have no grudge against the town.
GOOD, I'D HATE TO HAVE TO RUN YOU OVER. JOKE! OR SEND AN EMAIL TO MY BIODAD'S PEEPS TO SHOOT YOU. ANOTHER JOKE!
Why, is your biological father a marshmallow fan?
HE'S A LOADED ITALIAN-AMERICAN BUSINESSMAN. WORTH A MILLION. CRAP ON THE ALIMONY, THOUGH. OR MAYBE I'M JUST TELLING ANOTHER JANSEN STORY. YOU'LL NEVER KNOW, N00B.
I believe what people say. It saves time.
NEXT CLASS WE'RE LEARNING HOW TO FOLD TOILET ROLLS INTO NAPKIN RINGS.
Ha.
An engine in the wheelchair jolted into life the moment before the bell rang.
SEE YOU THEN, SUCKER.
—
A book, a juice carton, and a sunlit corner with a relatively clean plastic top in the cafeteria.
A gorilla's hand picked up the front of my shirt and slammed me against the wall behind.
The face was big and bald and shaved. Teeth were in a mouth in a scowl. He lifted me off the ground, head level with his burning stare. One of the man-mountains on the football team. He only touched my clothes.
"Boys—should—not—be—mean—to—girls." He'd spoken slowly. "You were mean to little Imogen. Bullies are not allowed in Forks High School." My collar tightened around my neck.
"Misha! Misha, stop it!" Imogen came running. She pushed her way under his shoulders, followed by fair-haired Erin. "I didn't say—put him down!"
He waited a little while; and lowered me.
"How many years did they hold you back?" I said. I didn't feel like holding back myself. "Keep your brain in your triceps? Three-year-old brain in a chimpanzee body? Too slow to do anything but what other people tell you? There's always someone who's happy to hit people and act like it's a whole thesis. I'll say anything you like—I do that instead of fight or sports—but it's meaningless, and you're stupid, and you'll die and rot after a pointless life of never thinking anything—serves you right, troglodyte—"
He slowly let me go.
"You...you s-shouldn't be a bully back, Misha," Erin said, stuttering over the braces in her mouth. "He's right about that. You're right about that." She gave me a quick nod.
"You are not a nice boy. But I will be nice back." The hand let go—and brushed me down.
"No, Misha, he was mean to you and still a major creep," Imogen said, reaching up to pat him on a muscled shoulder.
And flickering not far below her skull, she burns like golden fire—
"But y' can't beat people up for coming over creepy, or you're just as bad."
"I don't think he s-seems all that bad," Erin said. "Just...frightened."
A whirlwind inside her, quiet now but waiting; and the third of them well-water deep and still—
"I am that bad! I'm worse!" I protested. "I bite!"
"Weird as the Cullens ," Imogen said, jerking back a thumb to a lunch table on the far end of the cafeteria. "C'mon, Misha, sidekick. Just leave him alone like he wants."
"I wish...I wish you wouldn't call me that, Imogen," Erin said quietly, turning her head.
I didn't care in the least who the Cullens were: a group of four sat by themselves with uneaten lunch, two male and two female. A hollow of silent space was clear around them as if they had the effortless power to keep people away. A slender African-American girl sat without saying a word, but she'd lift a finger in some slight gesture and the boy with her would rush to fetch her water, juice, a tissue, lipstick. The other boy wore a short beard, silent like the right-hand pair of them, but the white girl close by his side seemed to talk unendingly, though she spoke directly into his ear and nowhere else. She hopped off her seat for a moment, two bright pink pigtails over her head, very short; a little person, as they're called, a dwarf. None of them bit into apples or opened cartons; and the pink-haired girl wound her way nimbly as a needle past the crowd to throw away whole apple and unopened orange juice.
Val sat on the other side with a group of his friends, the football team's captain and another boy. But this time his calm look was cold, and when our glances met he turned to stone; unforgiving. I looked down at the lunch tray—and at words on paper.
A tumult came from the doors outside, cutting halfway through a word. They were flung open with a noise as if they'd break and shatter at any instant; a group marched in, led by a short dark-haired girl, swaying on high thin heels.
"Who is the basketball champion of Forks High and the entire world?" she yelled in a shrill high voice, pumping a pale fist in the air:
"—Bodhi Cullen!" the others cheered her, milling around like iron filings drawn to a compass. "Bodhi Cullen!"
"Yeah, bitches! That's right! Hello, Sandro—go away today, Val, you're boring me. Who's here now?"
"Hello, Bodhi. You must have played a good game."
"Fuck, yeah! Three baskets and a rebound in a minute! I dodged under Tammy's arms and up into a three-point turn—and then—"
She progressed through all the tables, as if she would overturn them all because it amused her; I tried to ignore it.
It's too loud here. There aren't that many people—really, there aren't—you've seen worse crowds—but too loud, my head hurts, rats eating roots of white rotting trees—
Black print wavered on the page. I thought I heard wolves howling, old buildings creaking, people screaming and the air red and suffocating. "Dirty," I said high, in one of the voices in my head that aren't mine, "a scrubbing brush, roach in the drain—"
"New meat."
Bodhi Cullen had come too close. She swept aside my table as if she could have lifted something much heavier without breaking a sweat, and leaned over me with her hands on her hips.
"They call me Bodhi. It's short for Bodhisattva. Like the goddess."
"You don't look Indian," slipped out of me.
"I'm not." Bodhi waved her right hand; she curled and uncurled black-painted nails in front of her eyes. "I used to love it there, though. Sun and rain and thick sweltering air like moist syrup. So hot. So rich. So much hunting. Why don't you tell me your name, new meat?"
"Xavier."
"Like the saint," Bodhi said. "Oh, I know about you, Xavier. Scion of the great chief Swan. Creep or at least general weirdo, mostly. Very, very mean to poor little Imogen. Almost made her cry.
"Not that I fucking care." Bodhi Cullen leaned on the wall behind me, bending down, still too close. "Little Immy needed taking down a peg or two. You know how annoying she can get when she pesters you too long? About as annoying as several fleabites around your ass just turned septic and leaking. But I don't really mind her." She twirled on her stiletto heels, moving too quickly. "She's more entertaining than most of the lame-ass retards in this fucking hick loser school."
A boy nearby turned his head. "Did you just call us—"
She stalked over to him with the same speed. "Oh, I didn't mean it, Hari! Say you forgive me, all right?" She flashed a white-toothed smile at him, dangling over him and staying with him; and he returned the smile. "You know I like it when you rock out. Ditch physics with me? Bring the strings."
But instead Bodhi Cullen turned back to me, not teetering at all on her high heels. She wore black jeans with large holes cut out of them; cleavage above a small, tight shirt in the same lack of color. All black and white as an archived newspaper, except for yellow eyes.
She moves like a flash of black oil.
She smiled briefly. Her face was undeniably beautiful: a rounded forehead leading down to high cheekbones and a small pointed chin, a Roman nose, the lightly smudged lipstick as black as eyebrows and eyelashes, all smooth grey skin and elegant bones. Except for the way she was leaning far too close.
"Like what you see, new meat?" she said. "Or are you some kind of fucking faggot? Your line here is, I swear my sword to you my liege lady , maybe. Or just kneel down and beg me for a date. People who believe too much in Malory bored me years and years ago. Or can't you talk? —No, it can't be that, you said enough to little Immy—"
"If you don't back off," I said, "then I may start screaming at you. Or saying the same things I said to little Imogen. I don't know you—you move like there are worms crawling below your skin—"
"I don't want to know you either," Bodhi Cullen said, and slammed down a pale fist into the table's plastic. It cracked and shuddered; a piece flew up, and I felt something sharp hit me just above the eye. Bodhi spun on a heel. "You can fucking well leave me alone, freak!"
She hates me , was the wild thought, the eyes like molten gold for all I'd done little to hurt her, hates like poison —
"Bodhi, stop it at once." It was the African-American girl with the muscular boy who had stood; called across to her all the way from the other side. "Come and pretend to be civilised, dear."
"Oh, shut your fucking mouth, Ronnie, can't you see I was fucking leaving already? You're not the boss of me, so go stick your head up your ass—oops, wait, that's Antony's job, isn't it? I'm not your brainwashed boytoy, I'm your fucking aunt here, Auntie fucking Bodhi—"
I sat in the empty biology room to wait for class. There had been a cut by my eyebrow, scabbed over already; an old table and a strong girl, I supposed.
"I'm Ms Harper. Here's your textbook. We're in the middle of mitosis." She wore brown hair loosening from a ponytail like a lion's mane; she wasn't a tall woman, but she filled a room with her voice. "Have you studied it before?"
"I remember it. I've...read about it." The cell moving, as if it boils and bubbles with the need to multiply itself; chromosomes lining up for the dance, then stretching and growing and coming apart. It's a beautiful thing...
"We'll be separating onion slides into the phases of mitosis they represent. Follow through with your textbook, but don't let anyone else look over your shoulder." She glanced over her class list, scowling suddenly. "Sit there." More students had started to file in, Val and the fair-haired Erin, a second boy from the football team. "The microscope's in the cupboard under the table."
Bodhi Cullen came last into the room, holding her head high below her cloud of black hair. The only empty seat left was next to me.
"Erin," Ms Harper said, flashing Bodhi a glare, "switch desks. Do the lab with Xavier. Bodhi, you're with Valerie."
"You've—you've done a good job of setting up the microscope," Erin said from behind her hair. "Would you...would you like to do the first sample? I can't look at your book."
"Interphase. Prometaphase." Spindling chromosomes parting: the kinetochores pull the sister chromatids along the cell lines...
"Did you both have a turn?" Ms Harper stepped around to us, looking down at my scribbled notes and diagrams.
"He d-didn't even look at the book," Erin said, pointing to the two she'd completed.
"So you have studied it before," Ms Harper said to me. "Well done. Make sure you finish the homework. Come early next class and bring it to me."
She marched over to Val and his partner, who sat back and tilted her laboratory stool with a foot raised in the air. Val bent over the microscope, writing slowly but steadily with a black pen.
"Bodhi? Need I ask how many you've done?" Ms Harper said, folding her arms forbiddingly.
"Prophase, metaphase, anaphase, telophase, interphase," Bodhi Cullen reeled off, counting on her fingers, still swaying on her chair as if she'd fall at any moment. "You've seen one wrinkly old onion skin, you've seen them all. Kind of like the wrinkly old onion on your shoulders. By which I mean, Mizz Harper, your head is a wrinkly old onion." She drew out the z: Mizzzzzz.
Ms Harper's glare rained green down on her. "Another zero; another detention, Miss Cullen. You'll find I have a lot more patience than you."
Bodhi giggled. "I wouldn't think so, Mizz Harper. I really wouldn't think so. But that's okay. I can just ditch and get my big bro to smooth things over with the headmaster. Where's that shiny new lab coming from again?"
"And no patience at all for those who think they can buy their way out of school discipline. Put that chair down and sit at the far desk. I don't want to hear another word out of you."
Bodhi sniffed, tossed her head, and obeyed; and as she did she looked at me with the same hatred I'd seen in the cafeteria. Fury blazed in her. I had to look away, to Val's small calm smile below the microscope as he was left alone.
"She...she sometimes says cruel things," Erin whispered to me, writing her work. "But when she is close, she...dazzles; she m-must be nice, somewhere inside her... Her older brother is the surgeon and he helps a lot of people," she went on. "Jon Cullen. His wife is Ellie Cullen; she owns the local nursery, and she helped our school set up our garden. She speaks at the school on nature days. And they took in four foster children, even though Doctor and Mrs Cullen are quite young. Veronica, Antony, Killigan, and Alora. And...and you know Val already, and..." Erin's voice dissolved into a terrified squeak as Ms Harper walked back around to our table, though the teacher said nothing; and neither more did the girl.
Not one more class was with Bodhi Cullen; trigonometry and history, then the end of the day.
Gordon will be waiting.
The bookbag swung heavily from my shoulders. I hadn't done that mathematics before, but the book was there; then Roman history, a terrifying time when the empire seemed to be collapsing and the world was constantly changing...and now I'll read you some old Roman proverbs, by the anonymous writer known as Cato. This is what he wrote while perhaps to him the world was falling apart. Instruct your mind with precepts, nor cease to learn; for a life without principle is like an image of death. Imogen folded together a paper aeroplane and quietly threw it across the room while the teacher spoke.
Four boys with motorcycles waited outside, fidgeting with engines and lounging against bike stands, passing cigarettes to each other.
"Hey! New kid." The one who spoke was the shortest of the four of them; but he was muscular and tough-looking, scowling permanently. "Welcome to prison."
"We're the barn dance committee," another boy said.
"We're the ones you don't mess with," said a third. "That's what we're about, right, Monty?"
Monty.
Fishing trips and old friends—sort of—
"Montgomery Black!" I said. "Gordon reminded..."
The shortest one raised a knotted fist, muscles clenched. "'Cause you're new," he said, taking a step toward me, wandering, "and 'cause my dad respects your dad, you get one chance. Traditional-like. It's Monty. Monty Black. One more screwup and you get shanked. Got it?"
Then the motorbikes roared into life, and they were gone.
Gordon's cruiser sat on the far end of the carpark.
"How was school?" he asked. "Anything much happen?"
"Nothing much," I said.
—
A/N: Two sparklepire rule amendments in the persons of Veronica and Killigan: first because Meyer's skin bleaching is incredibly racist, and second because it's not like the vamps lose their head hair is it now and because the Baldur's Gate character definitely has a beard.