Alyzon Whitestarr (6 page)

The next week I went back to school.

I had prepared myself as best I could, practicing quick shifts of focus and being careful never to look right at someone who was looking at me. I had a pocketful of fast-dissolving mints. And I could always use Luke’s image if it all got too much, although I was determined not to resort to a total blockout unless I had no choice.

I was pretty nervous, but the worst part would be those first few minutes in class when everyone focused their attention on me. I told myself that if I could get through that, the rest would be easy.

I dawdled deliberately to avoid the early morning locker crush in the hallway because the one thing that really scared me was the thought of being touched, and it would have been unavoidable in the scrum between classes. I had not found any way to lessen the impact of physical contact, and I couldn’t imagine what would happen if a few people bumped into me at once. Maybe my brain would explode like in some science-fiction movie.

I took every book out of my locker and put them into my pack. It would be a pain to lug them all from class to class, but I didn’t dare risk going back during the day.

I hesitated outside the door to homeroom, heart racing and palms sweating. I told myself I didn’t have to go in if I didn’t want to. Everyone would understand if I changed my mind. The problem was, if I backed away now, I doubted I would be able to bring myself to try again.

I took a deep breath, stuck a mint in my mouth, and entered the room.

Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared, and I had to grit my teeth to keep from reeling backward. Even looking down and concentrating on the mint I was sucking, I felt like I had been pounded by about twenty pillows simultaneously.

Fighting nausea and panic, I managed to nod my head apologetically at the teacher without actually looking at her, then I all but fell into the seat nearest the door. It was vacant, but Sylvia Yarrow was in the next seat and my hand brushed her bare arm. I felt the burning surge of her corrosive nastiness, which was boiling out of a black lake full of despair and self-loathing.

I don’t know what I looked like in those seconds after I brushed against her, but Sylvia must have thought I was going to throw up on her because she drew back hastily. Now that I was looking at her, I could smell the sharply unpleasant stink of burning plastic that she was giving off. Rather than being repelled, I felt a great surge of pity for her. It was this that allowed
me to get a grip on my senses. I concentrated on the mint and said, “Are you all right?”

For a split second her face screwed up like she was going to burst into tears. Then she snapped, “Of course I’m all right, you idiot. You hardly touched me.” She flounced off to sit in another seat.

* * *

“What did you say to Sylvia just after you came in?” Gilly Rountree asked, moving up one seat to take Sylvia’s spot after the homeroom teacher left. “She looked like you punched her in the stomach.”

“Nothing,” I said. Gilly was giving off a wonderful sea-breeze scent, which vanquished the clammy despair left over from my glimpse into Sylvia.

“Are you OK or not?” Gilly asked doubtfully.

“About half OK and half not,” I said. She was looking at me, so I pretended to riffle through my books, asking whether the schedule had changed while I was away.

Gilly sat back in her seat with a sigh. “It’s like
Days of Our Lives
in this place. You can miss months, and then you see one show and pick up where you left off. Nothing changes.”

Mrs. Barker came in then. She made no more comment on my presence than a swift nod, before outlining the work we were to do that period. I hardly heard her. There was still a roaring in my ears and I felt queasy, but I also felt shakily triumphant at having managed such an ordeal. My aim for the rest of the day was to be so dull and uninteresting that any curiosity about me would die an untimely death.

Once I calmed down, I was able to concentrate on the class. I had always liked English, and it went pretty much as usual except I didn’t answer any questions or make any comments. I was too scared of drawing anyone’s attention.

The next class was math, and I was surprised to discover that I enjoyed it. It was not just because everyone left me alone so they could concentrate on what the teacher was saying; it was the numbers themselves. How perfect and complete they were! Mathematics, I saw, could be like building a house out of light or music. I had always struggled before, because numbers and calculations had seemed to have nothing to do with anything I cared about, but now I saw that numbers were literally the fabric of life.

I was so absorbed in an equation that I didn’t notice the class had ended until I dimly registered Gilly saying: “Earth to Scotty!” I saw then that everyone was packing up, and I reluctantly closed my notebook.

“So, what was it like?” Gilly asked. I glanced warily sideways, but I didn’t feel trapped or hammered by her regard. The mathematical calculations I had been doing seemed to hang in my mind like a web, absorbing the rush of information from my extended senses.

“Hello!” Gilly called with laughing exasperation.

“Sorry. What did you say?” I asked, trying to hold the web of calculations in my mind. But like a spiderweb in rain, it was breaking and fraying.

“I said, how was it being in a coma?”

“It was like a long sleep,” I said distractedly.

“Ahh, but in that sleep … what dreams may come?” crooned Jezabel Aster.

I forced myself to look at her, but her attention did not hurt me, either. Even though the web of calculations was falling apart, it was still absorbing the pressure of her regard. I remembered that Jezabel was the class clown, and thought if I wasn’t careful, the next day the school would be doubled up over her imitations of me acting weird. So I said more firmly, “I was just asleep, and then I was awake.”

Luckily, the bell rang and Mr. Rackett marched in, right on time as usual, sending Jezabel scurrying back to her seat. Mr. Rackett is the most punctual teacher in school. It’s what history does to a man. All of those dates have made him scared he’ll miss his own historic moment.

The class was only a single period, but I was too elated by what had happened in math to concentrate. It seemed to me that I had stumbled on the perfect way to screen the input from my extended senses. I was too exhausted to try doing complex calculations, but I tried counting and then simple equations, and both worked to lessen the sensory input, although not as effectively as the web of calculations had.

Other than what had happened in math, the most interesting thing about the whole day was realizing how little I had really known people before the accident. I kept seeing things that I hadn’t been capable of seeing before. A thousand details of body language, from fingers twitching or hands shaking to laughter hidden from anyone but me; a sudden sweat that told me someone was scared; the slightest telltale intake of breath.

I felt like some sort of super Sherlock Holmes who could see evidence and make connections that other people were unable to make. Then there were the phantom smells. Mostly I had no idea what they meant, but they made me curious about the hidden aspects to people I thought I knew.

For instance, one of the class troublemakers smelled a lot like Luke after a bath, while a girl I had admired smelled so strongly of paint thinner that just being near her made me feel nauseous. Then there was Gilly, who I had always quite liked, but whose delicious sea smell now so strongly attracted me that it was all I could do not to follow her around like a puppy.

The biggest shock happened at the end of the day.

I had dawdled packing up in the last class to make sure that the hall would be relatively empty when I got there. So there was no one nearby to see me open my locker and find a note from Mrs. Barker asking me to see her. I was wondering why she hadn’t just spoken to me in class that morning, when I heard someone call my name.

I looked up and my heart did a total flip, because coming down the hall was the incredibly handsome Harlen Sanderson.

I dropped some books and bent to retrieve them so that I could buy some time to start counting.

“So how does it feel to be back, Alyzon?” Harlen asked, coming to stand beside me. My knees shook as I straightened and looked into his beautiful green eyes, half obscured by the silky black fringe of his hair.

“I’m …,” I began, then a hideous stench hit me so hard
that I stopped counting and reeled back against the locker in shock and revulsion. I could feel darkness fluttering at the edges of my vision like a ragged black bird, and I saw Harlen’s eyes widen in puzzlement.

“That’s the old charm, Harl,” laughed a boy who had stopped at a nearby locker.

I dropped my books again and knelt down, ostensibly to collect them. Now that I was not looking at Harlen, I couldn’t smell the awful rotten stench he had given off. But I could not stay grovelling on the floor. I struggled to my feet and turned to look at my locker.

“Are you all right?” Harlen asked.

“I just … f-felt a bit dizzy,” I stammered. I had finished putting my books away, so I had no choice but to turn back to him.

He looked sympathetic and said something, but I didn’t hear it; the ghastly stench he emitted was growing stronger. Desperately, I pulled open my bag and began shoving books back into it from the locker. Now that I was not looking at him, I was free to listen.

“… gave me something to give your sister,” Harlen was saying.

I had no idea what he was talking about. “You want me to give something to Mirandah?” I hazarded, throwing him a quick look, then zipping up the bag.

“The other sister,” Harlen said. He took out a generic-looking CD in a clear blank case and held it out. I all but snatched it and thrust it into my pocket. Then I shut my
locker and babbled something about Mrs. Barker wanting to see me right away.

I made for the staff room, stopping at the bathroom first to rinse my mouth out with water. Even so, it still felt like my tongue and throat were coated in the slimy reek that had emanated from Harlen. It was only then that it struck me that he had smelled even worse than Dr. Austin at the hospital. But how on earth could handsome, charming Harlen Sanderson, whom I had yearned after for a year, smell so bad?

I was so rattled that it took all of my self-control to act normal when a teacher finally condescended to answer the staff room door. I guess I didn’t quite succeed, because when Mrs. Barker came out, she gave me a searching look.

“I didn’t mean you had to see me the second you got the note, Alyzon,” she said. “You ought to have gone straight home today. You look pale.”

I stammered that I was fine, but she ushered me to a bench outside the staff room and sat beside me, giving off the yeasty bread smell of her essence. It seemed so wholesome after what I had smelled in the hallway.

“The reason I wanted to speak to you was to tell you that you’ve missed a couple of important tests,” Mrs. Barker said. “I can’t rerun them for you because they’re through the Department of Education, but I can request makeup tests. The only thing is that you’ll need to take them outside of school hours. You could come in one day on a weekend and do both at once. How does that strike you?”

I didn’t answer straightaway, because she had patted my
arm. When her skin touched mine, I felt how much she liked me; not just as a student, but as a person. I was startled because, while Mrs. Barker was my favorite teacher, I had never imagined she felt so warmly toward me. Certainly it didn’t show in her expression. But now I suspected that if she wasn’t a teacher and I a student, we might have been close friends.

“What is it, Alyzon?” she asked gently.

“It’s … uh, I’m fine.” I didn’t dare look at her until I had managed to start counting again.

She said with a frown in her voice, “Another alternative is that I could ask for an averaging of your previous tests.”

“No … no, I want to do the tests,” I told her firmly, looking into her face but reciting the nine times table to myself so her attention would not overwhelm me. “But I’ll need a bit of time to prepare.”

She looked pleased. “Of course. It will take a week or so to set it up anyway.” She looked me over. “Are you sure you’re OK? Your father said you were still suffering some reactions to your accident.”

I smiled to think of Da preparing the way for me and felt better. “I think it’s just getting used to being around so many people. I ought to be used to it, with my family.”

“You have a pretty special family,” Mrs. Barker said warmly. She might have said more, but another teacher stuck her head round the staff room door and said there was a call.

* * *

I had intended to phone Da to pick me up so I could avoid the crowded home bus, but coming out of the school, I decided
that what I really needed was some space to think about what had happened with Harlen Sanderson. I set off to walk along the bus route, knowing I could hail the next bus if I needed to.

The yellow afternoon light made the walls of houses and buildings look like biscuits saturated in honey, and there was a slight, sweet-scented breeze. I breathed it in and told myself that it was impossible Harlen Sanderson had smelled like that—meaning, I must have been wrong to think smells were only associated with feelings and emotions or people’s essences. Perhaps other things gave off smells, too. Maybe Harlen had been thinking of a really awful sight. Or he might even be sick and that was what I had smelled. I tried to focus better on what had happened by the lockers, but I was frustrated by my inability to think clearly about my changed senses. I just didn’t seem to have the words to describe my impressions.

It was like this book Da had read us one winter, called
1984
, about a future where the authorities were trying to control everything. One of their methods was to cut words out of the language. This was very clever, because without the words people found they couldn’t think about the things those words had expressed. The word for love was taken out, and people stopped being able to love. The book was saying that the most basic things were hard or impossible to do without the words to express them.