Chapter 7
Tobias
Why was she crying? The girl, the girl with the golden hair. She was crying with an African-American girl, in the middle of the group of kids, probably from some school.
I made my way through the crowd. Hardly anyone was noticing the crying, and those who did got a rude gesture directed in their direction from the girl. When I was pretty close, I mouthed "Come over here," to the two girls. It surprised me that they came. I'd expected her to aim the rude gesture at me.
They followed me out of the crowd. They had been standing at the back, and there were a lot of kids there, so no chaperones noticed. That might have also been due to the questions a Hispanic boy were asking that were bull. All the other kids were laughing, even some of the adults.
We slipped away unnoticed. "I'm Tobias. Sorry to butt in, but what's wrong?"
"I'm Rachel, but nothing's wrong," the blonde girl said. The girl I had been looking at for the last ten minutes.
The black girl gave Rachel a look. "I'm Cassie," she said out loud. "Do we seem familiar to you?"
It was a weird question, but Cassie seemed completely serious. I thought about it. Rachel, Cassie . . . the names kind of rung a bell, but there are tons of Rachels and Cassies in the world. I mean, probably lots of the kids I had seen flying as a red-tail hawk had those names.
Red-tailed hawk? What? The only flying morph I had was a seagull.
"Sort of. Your names ring a bell, but it's probably just coincidence," I tried to convince myself and the two girls.
"Not coincidence. Definitely not." Cassie turned to Rachel. "He's one of us. Whatever we are. I know it."
"Okay," Rachel agreed dubiously.
"Girls! Get back here! What do you think you're doing?" said a man, starting to stride over.
Muttering a bad word, Rachel grabbed a pen and tiny notepad out of her bag. She wrote her full name, address, and phone number. Different area code than mine. I took a closer look. California! She was all the way from the other coast. She shoved the paper at me. "Call me in two days. We'll be back home then. Gotta go!" With that, she and Cassie raced over to the man. I could hear her saying, "Sorry, I just had to get Tobias Fangor's autograph! He's famous. Do you KNOW who his father is?"
The man just sighed and steered the girls back to the lecture.
Rachel Berenson. She was so beautiful. I walked a little ways then morphed seagull. The only flying morph I had. No red-tail hawk. What had I been thinking?
Flying usually takes my mind off things. Not today. The only thing I could think about was Rachel and her friend. Why did they seem so familiar?