Alyzon Whitestarr (16 page)

“I didn’t realize you came here together,” he said cheerfully as we got in. I left it to Serenity to tell him we had come separately, but she said nothing.

Da asked what we had been studying, and again Serenity said nothing, so I told him what I could remember about Bushido. Da said he didn’t see how killing yourself could fix your honor.

“Do you think anyone still commits seppuku?” I asked him.

“I think most people would find less painful ways of dying,” Da said.

I thought I heard Serenity mutter something, but when I turned around, her face was blank and she was staring out the window.

* * *

Mirandah was cooking, and the house smelled deliciously of Swiss cheese-and-vegetable frittata. I was hungry enough for two servings, but I noticed that Serenity ate only when Da was looking at her. The rest of the time she fiddled with her food, trying to rearrange it to make it look as if she had eaten more than she had. I wondered suddenly if she could have an eating disorder.

She went to our room after dinner, saying she had a headache. I didn’t want to go up and have her glowering resentfully at me, or lying there in the dark grimly pretending to sleep, so I stayed to help Mirandah dry the dishes. Three teaspoons in, the phone rang and she threw the tea towel down and went to answer it. I thought it would be Ricki like usual, but she got an odd look on her face and turned to hold out the receiver to me.

“It’s Harlen Sanderson for you, Alyzon,” she said coyly.

I managed to contain my reaction, but the effort made me feel slightly sick.

“Harlen?” I spoke pleasantly into the phone.

“Hi, Alyzon,” Harlen said, his voice sounding deeper and older on the phone. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to you today. You want to come out for a while now?”

My heart pounded as I tried to think how to answer.

“Alyzon?”

“Uh … sorry, Harlen, I can hardly hear you. We must have a bad connection.”

“Is this better?” he said loudly. “I said, do you want to come out for a while? I’m in your part of town, at the mall.”

How does he know where my part of town is?
I wondered uneasily. But I only said, “I wouldn’t be allowed tonight. I have to look after my baby brother.”

There was a long pause, then Harlen said in a friendly voice, “Some other time, then? I guess I should meet your parents first.”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to sound enthusiastic. “I’d better get off now. My sister is waiting for a call.”

“OK, we’ll talk tomorrow,” Harlen said. When I put the receiver down, I saw that my hands were shaking.

“What’s the matter, Aly?” Da asked.

“I … I don’t know. Maybe I got up too fast.”

“That’s no surprise, considering who was on the phone,” Mirandah said. “I can’t believe you just played hard to get with Harlen Sanderson!”

Da asked me, “Who is Harlen Sanderson?”

“Only the school pinup,” Mirandah said drolly “What’s your secret, daaarling?” she demanded in Rhona’s voice, pretending to poke a mike in my face.

“My underarm deodorant,” I said so seriously that it took them a minute to realize I had made a joke. Then they laughed. I was glad to have put them off, but inside I was still quaking.

* * *

That night I dreamed that I was inside a samurai warrior who was preparing for seppuku. I was trying my hardest to stop him, because I would die if he died. I couldn’t make his body obey me, and when he lifted the sword point, I felt a sense of helpless terror. Then the warrior glanced sideways, and I was aghast to see Harlen sitting beside us as kaishaku.

“I know what is inside you,” Harlen whispered.

The shock woke me.

I made sure I arrived so late the next morning that there was no chance of bumping into Harlen at the lockers, but when I saw my name on the notice board for litter cleanup duty, I nearly had a heart attack. I thought Harlen had written us in together. Then I saw it was Gilly’s name next to mine.

“Hope you don’t mind me nominating you as my partner,” she said when we met to collect our bins and spikes.

“Not at all. I’m proud to be the one you want to pick up moldy crusts with.”

She laughed. “I thought you might rather be with Harlen. He was looking for you at the bus stop this morning.”

I didn’t say anything for a while. Then I said, “He called my place last night. He asked me out, but I told him I couldn’t go.”

She stared at me sympathetically. “Did your da say you couldn’t?”

“I didn’t want to,” I told her.

Gilly thought I was joking, of course. “This is Harlen every-girl-in-school-has-a-crush-on-him Sanderson we’re talking about?”

“Yes,” I said fiercely and unhappily, and her amusement faded. “I just don’t get why he’s suddenly so interested in me.”

“I know why,” Gilly said kindly, and I stared at her. “Alyzon, you were always a nice person, but these days it’s like something in you is radiating this … energy that … oh, I can’t describe it. But I bet that’s why Harlen suddenly got so keen.” She took my expression as puzzlement and elaborated. “I mean, it’s like when you walk past a hot bread shop. You want to go in even if you’re not hungry.”

I managed to say lightly, “You’re telling me Harlen wants me because I smell like a bread roll?”

Gilly laughed.

“What are you witches cackling about?” Sylvia Yarrow asked, passing by.

“Witch
is not the word for her,” Gilly said when Sylvia had gone out of hearing range.

“She’s angry because she’s hurting,” I said without thinking.

Gilly gave me a curious look. “How do you know?”

I shrugged, spiked a chip bag, and then told the truth. “I just feel it.”

“Yeah, well, what I feel is that she is a prime bitch.”

We picked up rubbish in silence for a while, following the line of the outer fence, and I thought over what Gilly had said about Harlen. Could it be that my extended senses were attracting him? Mrs. Barker had commented about the change in me and so had Mirandah, and even the creepy dream I had experienced the night before seemed to suggest Harlen was aware of the change.

“So, you liked Sarry and the others?” Gilly asked shyly.

I was glad to have my thoughts interrupted. “They’re great. Harrison was so funny.”

“He’s really smart,” Gilly said.

“I know. He said on the bus that he’s a senior, and he’s younger than me! How did you meet him?”

She shrugged. “I was doing some volunteer work, helping deliver meals to old people. That’s where I met Sarry, too.”

“And Raoul?” I asked.

“I was doing a computer programming class, and he was the tutor. We just hit it off so well that we kept in touch.”

“Then you introduced him to the others?”

She nodded. “We’re all movie buffs, and Harrison—”

“Wants to be a director. I know.” A vague plan solidified suddenly. “Gilly, would you like to come to my place for dinner one night this week? My dad or brother could pick you up and then bring you home after.”

“It’d have to be your dad, and he’d have to come in and meet my grandmother,” Gilly said dubiously.

I knew that she lived with her elderly grandmother whenever her mother was away on business trips, which was most of the time. I didn’t know anything about her father other than that he had left his wife and baby daughter and now lived in Paris. Gilly never mentioned him and rarely spoke of her mother. Most often she talked about her grandmother, but the old seaweed smell that infused her signature odor whenever she talked about the old woman told me the relationship was troubled.

Nevertheless, I was confident about Da’s ability to charm anybody and said so.

“It helps that he’s totally gorgeous,” Gilly said. I had introduced her to Da the night of the school play. “Why do you call him Da, anyway?” We reached the big blue Dumpster behind the cafeteria and emptied our bins into it.

“I guess it comes from him calling his own da that.” I wrinkled my nose at the smell, and reflected that there was a difference between “real” bad smells, such as the odorous reek of the garbage, and the rotting smell Harlen gave off, but I lacked the words to describe the difference.

“What night shall I say to my grandmother?” Gilly asked.

“You decide,” I said as we stacked our empty bins and washed our hands.

“How about Friday? I could stay later then.”

I laughed. “Done.”

* * *

The art teacher was out sick, so after lunch I had a free period in the computer lab to type a draft of the samurai assignment. Gilly was rehearsing with the school band, so I was solo. It wasn’t until the bell rang for the next class that I realized the boy sitting at the next computer was in Serenity’s homeroom. On impulse, I asked him if he knew her.

“Serenity?” the boy repeated blankly.

“You know,” one of the girls insisted. “She calls herself Sybl.”

“Oh, her.” The boy curled his lip.

“Do you know who she hangs around with?” I asked.

They all laughed. “Nobody here,” the boy said, and they went out.

I finished packing my own papers, wondering if he meant that Serenity hung around with someone outside school. I thought how she had turned up outside the library the night before, claiming to have been inside. Was it possible that she hadn’t been inside, but had been meeting someone elsewhere? But why be so secretive about it?

Coming out of the computer lab, I forgot Serenity immediately because Harlen was standing in the hall, filling it with his dreadful rotting stench. “Hiding from me, were you?”

I thought of him in my dream, saying, “I know what is inside you.”

Forcing myself to meet his eyes, I said disparagingly, “I suppose I have been hiding out a bit. It’s all this catching up I have to do because of being in the hospital. I’m really sick of it.”

“Poor baby,” Harlen crooned, his voice softening. He came a step nearer, and I fought to hide the shudder of horror that passed through me at the thought of him touching me. “You know, I came to school on Saturday to meet you after those tests,” he said softly.

“Oh, I didn’t see you,” I said, praying someone would interrupt us.

“I saw you go off in the car with Barking,” he said.

“She offered to drive me home. Don’t you like her?” I asked innocently, because it was suddenly clear that he didn’t.

“What’s to like?” Harlen asked lightly, but there was a definite edge to his voice.

“She’s a good teacher,” I managed to say.

“There’s more to life than school, Alyzon Whitestarr,” Harlen said. I fiercely resisted flinching when he reached out to run his fingers down a strand of hair that had escaped from my ponytail. “You are a little goody-goody, aren’t you?” He laughed softly. “But maybe you might like to be a little bit bad sometime with me.”

I clamped hard enough on my senses to gray the posters on the wall behind him, and suddenly the air was full of hissing whispers. I was terrified that Harlen would touch my cheek, but he just gave the strand of hair a sharp tug and then went away, saying he’d catch me later.

* * *

That night I told Da about asking Gilly to dinner, and he agreed to pick her up, although he joked about getting arrested for driving his beaten-up old van in the most exclusive part of town. His eyes flashed when I told him he also had to call Gilly’s grandmother. “There hasn’t been an elderly lady yet who could resist my undeniable charms,” he boasted.

“You seem cheerful,” I laughed.

“Gig tomorrow at lunchtime,” he said. “A well-paying job at an upmarket charity function, courtesy of Aaron Rayc.”

“Aaron Rayc?” I echoed. “What’s he got to do with it?”

Da shrugged. “He’s connected to the charity. But Alyzon, I’ve been thinking about Jesse and how you suggested he write down his thoughts. Your mother said he came into the studio last night at about four in the morning and talked to her for
two hours about his ideas. She didn’t understand a word he said, but he was in his room typing again today.” He looked at me thoughtfully. “You might just have created a monster.”

I felt a thrill of excitement. “Isn’t it great?”

Da grinned. “Now if you could take our poor mixed-up Serenity in hand.”

* * *

The next day was the interschool sports tournament, and I caught the morning bus, knowing that there would be no need to hide from Harlen because he would be competing at a school across town. Unfortunately, the athletes were just leaving for the competition when I got to school.

Just as I met up with Gilly, Harlen stepped between us, his foul stench swamping her gentle sea fragrance. “Beat it, babe,” he told her casually, and she melted away at once.

“Why did you do that?” I asked, annoyance at his dismissal of her overriding caution. He hadn’t even looked at Gilly.

“I wanted to talk to you before the bus goes.” Harlen leaned close. “Let’s get together tonight after school.”

“I can’t,” I said quickly. “I’m supposed to watch my baby brother again.”

“Can’t someone else take care of the brat? That fat brother of yours?”

His calling Luke a brat and Jesse fat would have angered me if I hadn’t been shocked that he knew so much about my family. I babbled something about Da being unhappy about us trying to avoid family responsibilities, then fell awkwardly silent.