Gypsy (The Cavy Files Book 1) (9 page)

“You did very well on your placement exam, Miss Crespo. Right on track with the ninetieth percentile of your class. We’ve whipped up a class schedule to get you through the rest of the semester, and you can use the time to acclimate to the school and the community, make some friends, and decide which electives you’d like to try next semester. Sound fair?”

The principal, a bulky, older woman with a head full of graying spiral curls and glasses secured by a beaded chain around her neck, says all of this in one breath, in a tone that suggests she couldn’t care less whether it sounds fair to me. The gold-plated sign on the edge of her desk declares her Principal Jacobs.

I nod and take the slip of paper from her outstretched hand, careful not to touch her fingers.

“Good.” She presses a button on her intercom but gets no response. After two attempts she walks over to the door and opens it, poking her head out into the main office. “Suze! How many times do I have to remind you to stay… never mind. Would you please send Mr. Kim in right away?”

She shuts the door without thanking the secretary, and I sit in the impersonal, cheap leather chair struggling not to laugh—apparently inept, distracted school administrators are the only thing portrayed accurately by Hollywood.

“This is your ID bracelet.” She hands me a metal band that forms to my wrist. It’s smooth and plain except for a barcode on the top. “Swipe it as you enter and exit each period, including lunch. It saves us from tedious roll calls and ensures your safety in case of an emergency.”

A knock distracts me before the concept of the bracelet sinks in and I can panic over how different this is going to be from Darley after all.

A boy at least as old as me and Asian in descent pushes open the door, keeping his hand on the knob. He wears the school uniform of khakis, white button-down, and a purple and black tie as though it’s smothering the life out of him. If Jude is tall, this kid is just a few ticks above average—three or four inches above my five-foot-six—but he’s striking. Hair the color of wet ink, bone structure that leaves nothing to the imagination, jet-black eyes hosting the smallest pinpoints of light, and deep dimples on either end of his shy smile.

“You asked for me, ma’am?” His question is soft and respectful. His gaze, more bored than curious, finds me.

“Yes, Mr. Kim. Please come in.”

Instead of waiting for him to sit, I leap up, ready to be out of the office and on with my day. A light flashed on the wall a few minutes ago, and by the sudden silence outside the office doors, classes have begun for everyone else. Now I’m going to have to walk in late, which I know from the movies is the fastest way to collect stares.

“This is Ms. Crespo,” she continues, frowning at me slightly. “She’s another of the teens rescued from those scientists out at Davey, Darvis, Darcey—”

“Darley, ma’am?” he supplies, as though the fact matters little, if at all. When Jude found out he’d been intrigued, even said he wanted to hear about it—which is natural, of course—but Mr. Kim’s response urges me to like him.

Wait,
another
of the teens? My heart pounds at the idea of another Cavy attending Charleston Academy. We didn’t discuss schools in the Clubhouse, since most of us landed in different districts, and I never named my private school. It’s almost too much to hope for.

“Yes, that’s it. Splendid. Anyway, Ms. Crespo, bless her heart, has been taken in by her biological father, and he has enrolled her in our fine institution. I’d appreciate it if you’d take her under your wing, at least until she finds her way around.”

“Of course.”

“That’s really not necessary,” I interrupt, because something about the way Mr. Kim looks at me, as though he’s barely concealing a secret, makes me jumpy.

“Don’t be silly. Mr. Kim is a new student as well, and he’s volunteered to help. He spent the weekend with the president of our student council touring campus, and has passed a test on our grounds and history with flying colors. You’re his second new student this morning.” The red spots on her cheeks make her look flustered. Confused, perhaps, by the idea anyone would avoid spending even a moment with her eager-beaver pet.

“Fine. Can we go, then?”

He nods, unreadable eyes fastened to my face. There’s an intensity about the way he watches, the way he waits, as though trying to anticipate my movements, guess my thoughts. I take a step toward the door and in an instant he’s at my elbow, fingers wrapped around my arm.

I jerk away and close my eyes at the same time, ice-cold dread pooling in my stomach as I wait to find out if this boy will die before or after Jude. Before or after he graduates from high school, or gets married, or if he’ll outlive us all.

But I see nothing.

My eyes fly open, shock slowing my thoughts, and grab onto his face. I’m staring, but there’s no way to stop with a frozen brain.

His blank expression shifts toward… amusement? “What is it?”

“Nothing.” It’s the strangest thing, but I get the feeling he knows the answer even though that’s impossible.

I realize my mouth is open and close it, pulling my arm from his grasp and shoving open the door to the hall. It’s easier to breathe out here, without the carpet and desks and ladies wearing too much perfume. The immortal boy comes up behind me, not touching me again but clearly waiting for me to speak.

I decide on “I’m sorry,” still unwilling to trust him.

I’ve never, ever touched another person without seeing their age of death. Not seeing his gave me the dual urge to touch him again to verify what had happened and to keep my distance from the unknown quantity.

This is unprecedented, unbelievable, the biggest, most potentially wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me, and I’m surprised to find terror on the edges of my reaction.

The idea of losing my ability dampens my palms with fear. It’s who I am more than I want to admit; even though it’s inconsequential and useless, it’s
part
of me.

It’s not gone, Gypsy. It worked on Jude just a few minutes ago
.

Then why? Why doesn’t this guy have a number?

If it’s not a problem with me or my mutation, then it must be him.

“Sorry for what?” He’s so even-keeled, so calm while my insides run sixty different directions, and the fact that it helps me breathe renews my inclination to like him.

“Acting weird, I don’t know. I was tired of smiling.”

“Don’t worry about smiling on my behalf. I imagine most people find it difficult in the principal’s office. She’s not the most genuine person in the world, and you have to concentrate on not passing out from her horrible perfume.”

I can’t help my grin now, but his lack of a number never leaves my mind.

It strikes me as embarrassing, being carted around by a kid who hasn’t gone to school here any longer than I have, and the sweat finds my hairline. “You don’t have to babysit me all day. If you could just show me to my first class, that should be fine.”

“Of course. Would you like to tell me your first name? Seeing as we’re not fifty years old, and even though this is the South, the principal’s kind of formality went out of fashion some time ago.”

“I’m Norah.”

“Dane.”

“Where are you from? Like, before now?”

“Washington, D.C.”

“Oh.” I want to know everything about him. I want to find a way to duplicate him, create more people immune to my morbid ability that forces me to keep everyone at arm’s length, but I can’t think of a single way to get a blood sample from him without raising at least twelve red flags.

“Where are we headed?”

I study the paper in my hand, now crinkled into a ball. “Looks like Latin.”

“My favorite.” He gives me another smile, one that suggests the two of us share a secret that we don’t. Or at least, that I don’t know about.

Then again, maybe we do. We’re both new here. The fact that he doesn’t seem impressed or even particularly intrigued by my freakish origins makes me wonder whether we could be friends.

It would be nice to have someone who understands what it’s like to be new and different in a way that has nothing to do with genetic mutations and secret abilities.

Chapter Seven

Dane drops me at the door to the Latin classroom, giving me a reassuring smile before disappearing around the corner and leaving me to face the stares alone.

Deep breath. There’s only one first day. One first class, one moment in the center of attention.

The metal knob turns under my hand, and then it’s happening. Eyes, thirty or forty of them, burn holes in my skin. The teacher, a balding man with thinning hair and a paunch, turns his back on the digital chalkboard and flicks off the light on his pointer. “Yes?”

“I’m, um, new. Should I just… ?” I tip my head toward a row of empty seats—the front row, of course.

“Your name?”

I forgot to scan my bracelet at the door, but thankfully he didn’t make me go out and do it as though I’m five. “Norah. Crespo.”

So strange, to have a last name to go with a first. A real first even, for that matter, although being called Gypsy never bothered me. It was just my name.

“Very well. Take a seat, please.”

I slide into the closest available chair, anything to step out of the limelight. He returns to his lecture, walking the class through a translation of the first chapter of
Metamorphoses
, and with fifteen minutes to go he asks us to split into groups and correct one another’s papers. I don’t have a paper, of course, but he includes me in the nearest group that’s short a member today—and includes Jude.

His smile sticks in my heart the way a fishhook can lodge in a finger. He quickly introduces me to the others—a bespectacled girl who barely glances up from her phone and another who studies me with a kind of suspicion that’s uncomfortable but honest. Everyone passes papers around to the left. I’m content to sit quietly until the teacher, Mr. Wells, approaches and asks me to mark the translation of the second girl—the pretty one—so he can assess my level.

Her name, Savannah Cooper, is scrawled across the top of the page in loopy cursive. The assignment was to translate the final chapter of Caesar’s
Gallic Wars
—
Metamorphoses
must be the beginning of a new project. I set to work, doing my best to ignore the Jude-flutters in my belly, with little success. The first girl puts up her phone and has a field day with his paper, leaving it more red than anything else.

Savannah’s work isn’t terrible, but it’s not error free, and halfway through the first corrective red mark it occurs to me that being the know-it-all may not be the best way to make friends. I study her pink lips and curly blond ponytail without moving my head while she ignores us all in favor of her cuticles. Or at least I think she’s ignoring everyone until I catch her peeking at Jude.

Making friends is good, but I don’t have to make friends with
everyone.
And a girl who would take major offense to my pointing out what’s wrong with her assignment doesn’t seem like she’d be a good choice. Not that she will. Or that she wants to be friends in the first place.

Just mark the paper, Gypsy. Cripes
.

The light blinks on the wall, signaling the end of first period, and I hand her paper over before stuffing my pen into the front pocket of my backpack. She glances at my corrections; there are fewer than ten on the entire page, which is pretty good. Latin isn’t the easiest thing to translate, and even though the Cavies have higher-than-average IQs, we all make mistakes. It’s so far removed from English that there’s room for debate on the meaning of many words and phrases.

I look up to find her smiling at me. “Thanks. Those are good catches, but I’m not sure I agree that my translation to
twilight
is wrong.”

“You’re welcome. And yeah, it’s a matter of opinion, but I’m partial to an
evening
translation there.”

“Do you know where you’re headed next?” she asks, stowing her own pen.

“Physics.” I memorized my schedule while Mr. Wells was lecturing.

“I’m headed to Chem II. It’s close. I can show you.”

“I can walk her,” Jude interrupts.

Savannah gives him a look that would wither the buds on a magnolia tree in April. “Don’t you have gym this period? It’s totally the other direction.”

His cheeks turn red, and he avoids her gaze. “Yeah, but… Okay.”

Tension vibrates between them, like they’ve struck a bad chord on a guitar. There’s something going on—she knows his schedule, he doesn’t want to argue with her—and in the middle seems like a bad place to be.

“Thanks for the offer, Savannah. That would be great.” I give Jude the fastest glance possible, not wanting to encourage any sort of friendship. “See you.”

“Sure. At lunch.” He makes an escape, almost knocking over a desk on the way.

Savannah shakes her head and keeps walking, choosing not to let me in on their history, whatever it might be. We step into the hallway, where Dane’s perfectly proportioned face, sporting the same conspiratorial expression, is waiting.

“Hey,” I say, wavering between annoyed that he’s intent on babysitting me even though I told him not to and the desire to reach out to someone else experiencing a first day. Somewhere in the mix is the fact that
he doesn’t have a number.
“Savannah’s going to show me where my Physics class is.”