Author's Note: I am Making a Commitment! I've actually got this chappie up relatively on time. My mother would be so proud...Here's another chapter, and really that last bit of the character's introduction. Enjoy!
Chapter Four
Ninth period—the extra hour at the end of the school day reserved for sports, detention, and study hall. In the school auditorium, the auditions for the fall play were beginning.
Just below the stage, in front of a group, Ms. Simmons—who, not surprisingly, was also the drama coach—welcomed them. I should have known she was behind this, Raven thought savagely, and glared at the toes of her boots. Her hair tumbled forward to shield her face.
"Thank you all for coming," Ms. Simmons said to the group. Her smile glittered lecherously beneath the harsh theater lights. "It's good to see so many of you interested in the stage."
Raven looked around at the other students through her curtain of hair. They did look…unique. Surely none of them could be accused of being part of the 'in' crowd. She recognized the kids she'd stood with on the sidelines in gym class, the left-behind losers: fat girls, girls with thick, prescription glasses, girls lacking "motor coordination," asthmatic girls who puffed and panted if they had to trot a few yards. Then there were the wiry yet weird: the punks, the New Agers, the anarchists. Kids hopped up on Push and Jazz bounced around in the shadowed seats beside the druggies who regularly toked Zeus. Hard-core dramatists, discernable by their brightly-colored clothing and eclectic hairstyles, hovered moodily towards the front.
And then me.
"Now, I see a lot of freshman in the group today, and I'm sure some of you have never auditioned for a play before, so here's how it will work—"
Before she could continue, the double doors at the back of the auditorium slid open with a loud click, and a curly-haired brunette with odd, turquoise eyes spilled through. Panting, she stumbled down to join the other students. The neon orange band that circled her slender wrist identified her as one of the Tested.
The girl grinned sheepishly, revealing small, white teeth. "What'd I miss, eh?"
Ms. Simmons shook her head slightly, then continued. "Okay, up here I have a few scenes from this fall's play. Come on up and grab a copy, then find a partner to perform it with. You've got half an hour to rehearse before the audition. Good luck, everyone."
Raven watched as the other students ignored her and began to partner off. Her hands balled into fists at her sides. Typical. It was no different than the rest of the school.
Maybe she could do a monologue instead. Wasn't that an option?
A slight movement to her right side caught Raven's attention. She looked up quickly and caught the gaze of that kid who'd come in late, the girl with unfashionably baggy clothes and a Testing band.
"What're you angry about?" the girl asked tonelessly.
"I…I'm not angry," Raven stammered. A blush rose up her neck. She wasn't very used to anyone talking to her, particularly not one of the Tested.
The girl nodded towards Raven's clenched hands, then shrugged. "It's nothing to be ashamed of, dama. There are all kinds of anger. Some kinds are just more useful than others."
"I'm not angry," Raven insisted. "I…I'm just…"
"Saying you're not angry is one kind," the girl interjected, her voice firm. "Not very useful at all, though." She slid into the seat beside Raven and absently rubbed the orange band around her wrist.
"I shouldn't be speaking to you," Raven said, eyeing the band nervously. She didn't notice—but the girl did—that her fists relaxed. "I should go."
"It's because of this thing, isn't it?" The girl gestured towards the band and sighed. "I just got out of Testing this morning. It really doesn't mean anything. I'm safe, at least until the next round." A look of quiet contemplation stole over her face, then she added, "M'name's Gabrielle. Who're you?"
"Me? Oh, well…" What could a name hurt? Raven could see no tinge of madness in this girl's eyes. "Raven. My name is Raven."
"Pleased to meet you, miss." They sat in silence for a moment, then Gaby blurted, "Wanna be partners? Y'know, for auditions?"
"I…well…"
"Oh, you don't have to," Gabrielle hurried to say. Her mouth quirked upward in a small, reassuring smile.
"Well, no, but…I…can you act?"
"No," Gabrielle answered without shame. "Drama really isn't my thing. But, see, that's the point. Next to me, you'll look like a movie star."
Raven grinned, despite herself. Light sparked in her eyes. "All right," she said. "Why not?"
At the same time that Raven and Gabrielle were picking up their scripts and flipping through them, Ursula was just arriving in the chemistry lab for detention. She'd taken her time to get back to the lab, busying herself with retying her shoes and dawdling in the girls' restroom. Now she came to the room to find her efforts wasted on a scrawny Asian chick with a nondescript face and messy black hair.
Ursula frowned haughtily at the other girl. "Who're you? Where's Kowalski?"
The Asian girl jumped back from her perch at the Ms. Kowalski's desk and shoved her hands guiltily into the pockets of her jumper. "Oh! A-Amaya. Is muh-my name."
Ursula's eyes narrowed. "And Kowalski?"
"The fruh-front office," the girl said. "I've been p-put in ch-charge o-o-of—"
"Get yourself together," Ursula snapped. "What do you think I'm gonna do, bite your head off?"
The culpable look that crept into Amaya's eyes spoke volumes. "Well, I…okay," she said feebly, her eyes cast toward the floor. She hesitated for moment, then managed to stammer, "Ms. Kowalski t-t-t-told me that y-you're supposed to st-start cleaning out the supply cl-cluh-closet 'til she gets back."
Ursula's lip twitched. "Clean?"
Amaya, apparently not trusting herself to speak, only nodded.
Ursula glanced down at her nails, neatly filed though unpolished, then at the fresh, clean calluses on her palms. She frowned, then glared over at the massive metal supply closet at the back of the room. "Uh-uh," she decided. "No way. I'm out." She stormed toward the door, flipping out her scooter on the way, but Amaya rushed to stop her.
"Pl-please don't go," Amaya pleaded. "I mean, w-well. It's nuh-not that bad. Not r-r-ruh-really."
As Ursula stared at her with an impenetrable air, Amaya's voice faltered. "S-see, there's a lot o-of cuh-cool stuff in that closet. It'll b-be…fun."
Is this girl insane?
"Besides," Amaya continued, "if you duh-dump now, you'll j-just end up getting d-double detention."
Ursula sighed. Her uncle Daigh would kill her if that happened. She flipped her scooter back and tucked into her bag.
"I'll help you." Relieved, Amaya grabbed a pair of rubber gloves and walked over to the supply cabinet. She pulled it open and was instantly bombarded by an avalanche of plastic beakers, test tubes and buckets. She sighed and blew a loose strand of hair out of her face.
Ursula sighed and began to help the younger girl.
Wrapped in shiny, black paper and decorated with a simple, red ribbon, the package that had just arrived in the front office sat on the secretary's desk. It wasn't at all interesting, seeing as the gift paper didn't flash different colors and the ribbon didn't dance loopily in the air. Actually, its utter lack of flamboyance was provoking enormous speculation.
"What is it? Candy?"
"Is it a present from a secret admirer?"
"Why is it addressed to Ms. Kowalski's chemistry lab?"
"I don't know," Ms. Kowalski insisted, "but I'll be sure to put out an announcement as soon as I open it, you busybodies!"
The staff stood by, as though she fully intended to open the box at any moment. Ms. Kowalski noticed. She fixed them all with a cold stare until they busied themselves with office chores, then bent back over the info tablets that had brought her to the office in the first place.
David cast one last look at the peculiar package, then sank back into his desk chair and stared blankly at the ceiling.
"Hey, what's your name?" The question seemed to come from Ms. Kowalski, though she hadn't looked up from her papers.
David's attention snapped to the teacher. "Who, me? It's, uh, David."
"If you're not too busy, 'uh, David'" she said, still without looking up, "do you think you could run that down to my room? There's a girl named Amaya there. She'll take care of it."
David wasn't too busy. Actually, David couldn't believe how incredibly not busy he was. So far, his new job hadn't been particularly demanding. Unfortunately, it wasn't particularly interesting either. About all he had done over the past half hour was alphabetize some files and sneak a few games of solitaire on his comp unit. He was more than happy to run an errand, especially if it meant he might learn the contents of the strange, black package.
"Okay, we're going to start with the seniors and work our way down to the freshman," Ms. Simmons began as she huddled the nervous students together. "That will give all you underclassmen a chance to see how it works, 'kay?"
Raven wiped her sweaty palms on the skirt of her dress, then turned to Gabrielle. "You want to get out of here?" she said to her.
"Hmm?"
"I want to go over these lines a little bit more before we actually have to do it." Heat bloomed in her cheeks. "I mean, I don't care what they think, I just, you know…I want it to be good," she finished lamely.
"Right, sure," Gabrielle said, her tone mild. "We can go over to the chemistry lab. It's right across the hall." She turned to the nearest student to her and whispered, "Hey, we're gonna be across the hall, let us know when we're up."
"Sure," the student answered absentmindedly, without even looking in Gabrielle's direction.
"That's Theo," Gabrielle nonchalantly told Raven as they quietly crept out the back doors of the auditorium. "He's my homeboy."
"I bet."
Amaya and Ursula were halfway through their job—if tugging everything out of the closet and spreading it all over the room counted as halfway—when they were interrupted.
"Oh, hey, guys," Gabrielle said, upon seeing the two other girls. She smiled winningly at the nervous-looking one, a girl she recognized from her English class. "Sorry, we didn't think anyone was gonna be in here."
The purple-haired one turned to glare at the newcomers. A smudge of dirt marked the bridge of her nose. "Why? Did you wanna be alone?"
Raven frowned and crossed her arms uneasily. She pointed her face toward the floor, allowing her hair to hide her face.
Gabrielle laid a comforting hand on Raven's tensed shoulder, then shrugged artlessly. "We were just going to go over our lines for the school play. We'll find another spot though, it's fine." After smiling again at Amaya, she grabbed Raven's forearm and began to lead her out the door.
"The school play..." The girl snickered to herself as she returned to the closet.
"Hey," Raven said suddenly, jerking from Gaby's grasp. She swiped her hair out of her eyes and glared at the purple-headed girl. "What's your problem?"
"I don't have a problem," the girl answered. Her hands found her hips. "I'm not the one trying out for the school play. You're the one who's going to end in front of all those people, wearing tights and going on about 'Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?'"
Raven's hands clenched at her sides, and she said, "M-maybe I don't care what anybody else thinks. I…Did you ever think of that?"
The girl's voice stayed cool, though her amber eyes flashed. "If you don't care what anybody else thinks, why are you freaking out?"
"Freaking… freaking out?" Raven's lips twisted in anger. "This isn't freaking out! You wanna see me freak out?"
Gabrielle and Amaya winced and backed away. They could tell when something was about to explode.
Meanwhile, the black package made its way closer and closer to the chemistry lab. David's eyes and nose just peaked out over the top of it as he clumsily held it in front of him. A week of school had gotten him pretty used to the twists and turns of the old building, but not well enough so that he could do it without seeing where he was going. His nose was starting to hurt from all the times he'd jammed into sharp turns.
One more right and a left. The chemistry lab was just ahead. Strangely, David could hear raised voices coming from the classroom. It almost sounded like a party, or, as he got even closer, a fight.
His knock—or, rather, kick—on the door came just in time as far as Gabrielle and Amaya was concerned.
"I'll get it!" she shouted gaily and ran to open the door. The entrance of David and the package was a welcome sight.
"Hey, come on in!" Gabrielle said to David, looking for any way to distract the fighting girls from their argument. She granted him her best two-hundred-watt-smile, then turned to the others. With exaggerated glee, she sang, "Look, everybody, it's a big, ol' birthday present!"
The tactic seemed to work. Raven and Ursula glared at each other for a moment, brown eyes fighting black, but they stopped bickering and gazed at the package with unbridled interest. David set the package down on a lab table in the center of the room and breathed a sigh of relief. That thing was heavy.
"Hey," he said, looking around at the other students and feeling a little uncomfortable at suddenly being the center of attention. "Uh, is Amaya here?"
"That's me," Amaya said timidly, stepping forward.
"This was addressed to the chemistry lab," David told her. "Ms. Kowalski said you'd take care of it."
Amaya's eyes grew wide. "Really? What is it?"
"I don't know," David said. "I was kind of hoping you'd open it so I could find out."
The other three students crowded in with growing interest.
"Oh, I d-duh-don't know," Amaya said nervously. "That might be overstepping my authority."
"Come on, Amaya," Ursula chimed in. "What's the worst that could happen?"
"More detention," Raven said, shooting Ursula a dirty look.
"Oh, I didn't realize you were such a Miss Goody-Two-Shoes," Ursula shot back, glaring intensely.
"What did you just say?" Raven's face was beginning to turn red, her eyes narrowing, and her mouth contorting into a sneer.
"I agree with Raven," Gabrielle jumped in, hoping to prevent another fight. "We could get into serious trouble."
"No," Raven said, not wanting to back down. "I'm not afraid. I totally think we should."
"I agree with Raven," Gabrielle quickly repeated, desperate to keep the mood in the room jovial. "Let's open it."
All eyes turned to Amaya. She shrunk back. She'd never really had to deal with peer pressure that much, mostly because no students ever talked to her. Still, she was just as interested as the others to see what was inside.
"I'll do i-it," she said finally.
The kids turned to the black package on the table, all of them wondering what kind of surprise was awaiting them inside.
Amaya began to gradually unfold the red ribbon with the lab tweezers. But what happened next—the black hole, the flash of light and the explosion that rendered them unconscious—was something that none of the could have ever predicted.
Here's that glossary I promised:
dama - noun a term of endearment for a woman or a girl. As in, "You're such a great writer, dama! I wish I could be just like you some day." slang
dump- transitive verb to abandon an event as no longer wanted, liked, or needed. As in, "Don't dump now; the party's just getting started!" slang
frosty- adjective fashionable and sophisticated. As in, "Oh, you're so frosty, Mai; you've got the greatest boots!" slang
Testing - noun Psychological Testing; mandatory to all police officers or federal workers who kill a person in the line of duty; mandatory to any student or military personel deemed unstable by a counselor, psychiatrist, or therapist. As in, "I'm off work today, boss. I've got Testing."
I can promise you that there'll be more where that came from.
