Fathom (18 page)

“I can take it, seriously. What’s your name again?” Maybe if I distracted him, he would loosen his grip. We continued down the hall, past the library and the principal’s office. A couple of Lucy’s friends stood in a stairwell. They stopped gossiping long enough to give me the evil eye, but at least they didn’t start whispering about me.

“William. I mean, Will.” He slipped into another simpering smile. He was actually pretty cute when he smiled, almost like a lost puppy.

“Look, you really want to carry my stuff?”

He nodded. All bobble, like his neck was broken.

“Well, I need to get to the cafeteria, like yesterday. Just make sure that you give me my junk when we get there. I’m meeting some people.” At least, I hoped I was meeting somebody. I didn’t want to get stuck with this stalker for a whole lunch period.

I started jogging now, hoping we were far enough away from the office to not get in trouble. Will tried to keep pace with me, but his legs were too long. His feet got tangled in mine and I almost tripped. We both slid to an awkward stop, and he grabbed me by the arm to keep me from falling. He stood really close to me now, one arm wrapped around me.

“You smell—uh—really good.”

He flashed me another toothy grin.

I pulled away from him, saw the cafeteria looming up ahead of us. I could smell it before I could see it. It was either Mystery Meat Monday or Last Week’s Loser Leftovers. Either way, I fought a gag reflex as we swung through the open doorway.

“Okay, hand it over,” I said, my arms outstretched.

“You sure?” Goth-guy Will asked. “I mean, you can get your food and I can carry your—carry your—”

It was like listening to a bad remix.

“I can handle it from here. Thanks.” I gave him a big smile, tried not to wince when he leaned over me again and drew in a deep breath before he gingerly gave me my stuff.

Right then I flashed on Riley, standing beside me on Brianna’s balcony, that cotton-candy sweet fragrance that had wafted from her when she got too close, and then Caleb, that musky scent like a garden at dusk when he came into the store yesterday, the way I could hardly resist him every time I ran into him.

I smelled like they did. And apparently it was driving all the boys nutty.

Every one but Sean. He must be immune.

Just my luck. The one boy I was really interested in didn’t even notice that I had turned into some sort of Selkie femme-fatal overnight.

•

I left Will behind and slogged solo through the lunch line to buy a bottle of water, then paused at the edge of the room. It had taken too long to get here. Sean was probably gone already. Most of the tables were cluttered with discarded trays and surrounded by empty, half-pulled out chairs. With a sigh of defeat, I began weaving my way through the tangles left behind by the first lunch period. The entire time, I kept looking for Sean or Brianna.

No sign of them anywhere.

I listened for Brianna’s high pitched squeal of excitement and Sean’s deep, contagious laugh. Still nothing. If either of them were here, they had to be outside. I squeezed through yet another blockade of chairs, almost made it to the door when some guy—I think he’s in my English class—stood up in front of me.

“You want to sit with us?” he asked.

I peered around him, saw Sean and Brianna together on the far side of the quad.

I frowned. Tried to get past him. “No, thanks.”

The guy looked broken-hearted. His friends all snickered and he blushed. I glanced at his table, noticed it was filled with all the popular guys, the ones who lived in expensive beach homes and drove things like Porsches and BMWs.

“Maybe tomorrow?” he asked.

I pretended like I didn’t hear him and pushed my way past their table, through the door to the quad. Meanwhile, all his friends made catcalls and whooping noises, which in turn, made everyone in the cafeteria stop what they were doing and stare at us. Normally I would have frozen like a teenage deer in headlights, but right now I had other things on my mind.

I needed to talk to Sean.

And Brianna. I hadn’t seen her all day.

My heart thrummed and skipped as I angled through clusters of kids sitting cross-legged on the grass. Sean sat with his back to me, and he and Brianna were in some deep discussion as I approached. Neither one of them noticed me until I sat down beside Sean. I caught them in mid-conversation.

“I still can’t believe it,” she said.

“I know, me either—” Sean said.

They both grew quiet as soon as they saw me. Sean glanced at me, then back down at his lunch. None of it had been eaten.

“What’s up?” I asked. I cracked open my bottle of water and took a long slug. My throat was raw from throwing up and my skin itched from my recent transformation and I really needed to talk to somebody about all the bizarre stuff going on. But neither one of them would look me in the eyes and it started to make me feel like I’d done something wrong. Or worse. Like maybe they had a secret they didn’t want me to know about.

Brianna rested her hand on top of Sean’s, and unlike what had happened at his locker today, he didn’t take his hand away.

“It’s going to work out,” she said. “Don’t worry.”

What was going to work out?

Right then I figured it out. She knew all the secret stuff that he wasn’t telling me.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

Sean gathered his uneaten sandwich and apple and chips, then stood up. “I have to go.”

“Are you mad at me?”

He gave me a perplexed look and shook his head. “You know, Kira, sometimes it’s not all about you. I gotta go. I have a meeting.”

Brianna loaded up her tray with an empty soda can and a half-eaten salad and her laptop. “Me too. I need to finish my Algebra homework before next period.”

I wrapped my fingers around her wrist. I didn’t say anything; I merely waited until Sean wandered off. Brianna didn’t try to get away. She just stood there, grinding her teeth together.

“You can’t leave,” I said.

“I know it,” she answered.

“Yeah, you know it and I know it. What I don’t know is, why.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Sit down.”

She did.

“What the heck is going on?” I asked, although my list of questions kept growing longer by the minute. “I just turned into a living, breathing, fish-out-of-water during French class.” Her jaw dropped open, so at least I knew that she believed me this time. “And now every guy and his best friend thinks I’m wearing Love Potion Number Nine. Every guy except Sean, that is. And he won’t even tell me what’s wrong. Spill, Brianna, or I’m going to make you get on that table and start singing
Mama Mia
.”

“You wouldn’t!”

I grinned. “Wouldn’t I?” I laughed. “I’ll even make you dance.”

“Fine. Whatever. What do you want to know?”

I let go of her wrist. “First of all, what’s wrong with Sean?”

She took a deep breath, all the while rubbing her wrist as if I’d burned her. “He got kicked off the football team. The coach heard about what happened at my party—there’s a lot of stuff I haven’t told you—and anyway, a bunch of guys from the team got in a fight and they all got kicked off the team.”

“But he was hoping to get a scholarship—”

“I know. That’s why he’s so upset. He’s going to meet with the coach again.”

We stared at each other.

“Why did you lie to me yesterday at church?” I asked.

She squirmed in her seat. “I didn’t lie, not exactly. I just accidentally told you too much.”

“How come you have to do what I say all of a sudden?”

She looked away, stared off in the distance, maybe looking for the right words, maybe looking for a story that I would believe. “Because you’re a Selkie now. You turned.”

“But not everybody does what I tell them. Just you.”

“Me and Sean.”

I paused. “Sean does
not
do what I tell him.”

She gave me a long, hard, I’m-your-best-friend-and-I-know-better look.

“Okay, so he does what I tell him. Most of the time.” I never realized it before, but she was right. “So, why?”

“Because we’re familiars.”

“You’re what?”

Now she looked at me like I was five-years-old. And stupid. “I’m a familiar,” she said, enunciating each syllable, like that was why I was confused. “My job is to help Selkies when they’re on land. Get them what they need, help them fit in, provide them with clothes or food or shelter, whatever they need. And keep their secrets. It’s like a symbiotic relationship. I can’t really explain it.” She paused. “But I’m not
your
familiar. That’s why I can’t tell you everything. If she found out that I accidentally told you all that stuff yesterday—”

“She? Who?”

Brianna gave me a pained look. She’d already told me without saying anything.

“You’re kidding me! You’re Riley’s familiar?”

Brianna nodded.

“That sucks.”

“Tell me about it,” she said. “There’s no rule that says you’re going to get a Selkie that you like. I mean, I’d much rather be your familiar. But I was already attached when I met you. And so were you.”

“Attached? Who am I attached to?” But as soon as I said those words, I somehow knew the answer. “You mean Sean and I are—does he even know?”

She shook her head. “Not yet. That’s your job. He can refuse, but I don’t think he will. I mean, he’s been watching over you since the two of you were kids.”

“So, that means Caleb isn’t really your cousin, is he?”

“No.”

I sighed, took another swig of water.

“Kira, I really have to go,” she said. “I need to get my homework done or Miss T is going to have a cow.”

“Whatever.” My empathy was on a low note right now.

“We can talk about this more later, I promise. And you need to tell Sean. It’s time. Your pheromones are strong right now, you’re going to need him, or maybe your dad, to help you.”

“Help me what?”

But she was already standing up and looking like a dog, straining to break away from its leash.

“Oh, go ahead.”

As soon as I said that, she dashed away. Then I was sitting all alone, wondering if my world was ever going to be the same. I pulled my lunch out of my knapsack and started munching on some carrot sticks when I realized that a tall shadow was now blocking out the sun.

It was that kid from my French class. Goth-Guy-Will. He gave me a timid smile.

“Can I sit with you?” he asked.

“Sure, why not,” I said in my best flippant tone. “Nobody else wants to.”

Kira:

Apparently I’d been giving myself a manicure, one that had lasted all day long. It began in French, when I started chewing on my right thumbnail. Then, when I was hiding in the bathroom, I’d managed to polish off the rest of the nails on my right hand. After lunch, I started in on my left hand. Now, by the beginning of my last class of the day—honors English with Mrs. P, the only class I have with Sean—I finished off my last fingernail, chewing it until it started to bleed. This was a habit I beat last year and here it was back again.

I wiped the blood on a tissue. Then I stuffed it inside my knapsack.

Sean nodded and smiled at me when he came in the room, which was a big improvement from how he acted at lunch. I was beginning to wonder if maybe I’d crossed some line in our friendship on Friday. First I’d convinced him to sneak out—which was why he was at the party and why he got kicked off the football team. Then I kissed him—still didn’t know how he felt about that. Then he found out that I had a date with Caleb, who also happened to be the same guy I was leaving the party with when we all got arrested. Then we had the most awkward conversation in the world on my porch Saturday night.

And now he was suddenly keeping secrets from me.

Me. And I was supposed to be his best friend.

I’m sorry
, I scribbled on a note, then I slipped it to him across the aisle. Mrs. P was writing on the board, so she didn’t notice. A few minutes later I got the note back.

For what?
it said.

I wasn’t sure where to begin.

For wrecking the party. And for getting you in trouble
. I had to wait almost half an hour until the teacher had her head down, when she was reading something from a book. Then I passed the note back. I thought she might have seen me, she glanced up right when it was sailing through the air, but she didn’t say anything.

The note came back a little later, but before I could read it, Mrs. P finally admitted that she knew what was going on. Great timing. Right when I was about to find out how Sean felt about me. If we were still friends or not.

 “Okay, Kira and Sean, enough with the notes,” she said. “Give it to me.”

I had to get up and take it to her. I walked slow, fumbled with the note, flicked it open just enough to read his last comment.

Can we talk after class?

But I had my meeting after class. I glanced out the door as I set the note on her desk and saw my dad standing out in the hallway. Meanwhile, the hands on the clock moved precariously close to three fifteen. The last bell of the day rang before I even got back to my seat. Then I was surrounded by a wild rush of books closing and papers rustling and kids launching backpacks over their shoulders.

My eyes met Sean’s.

“I have to meet with Mrs. P now,” I told him.

He handed me another piece of paper. Folded.

“I can wait,” he said. “And don’t worry about your meeting, okay?”

I nodded. I didn’t open the paper until he was out of the room.

I’m not mad at you. I never was,
it said. For a minute I felt really good, like Friday night had never happened. Then my dad walked in the room and Mrs. P closed the door.

And suddenly it really was the end of my normal life.

•

Mrs. P pulled out a thick file and spread it across her desk. I looked like a criminal-in-training with a dossier thick enough to send me to juvenile. Dad leaned forward, a scary-serious expression on his face, his elbows resting on his knees as she talked. Meanwhile, I started twirling my hair with my fingers and began putting together a playlist titled, “It’s All Over Now.”