Has Anyone Seen Jessica Jenkins? (13 page)

“I can’t take this in,” he said quietly. He looked down at his feet. “I’m not sure I want something like this.”

“Something like what?” I asked.

“I have a hard enough time because I happen to enjoy math and science.” He shook his head. “You think I want to be even
more
different?”

I reached out to touch his hand. “Tom, it’s OK. It’s fun. It’s different in a
good
way!”

He shrugged me off. “Sorry, girls.” He waved his hands in an “I’m done” kind of gesture and started to walk away. “I just can’t handle it. I’m out.”

“Tom!” Izzy called down the road to him.

He stopped and turned back to us. “I won’t tell anyone,” he said. “And it doesn’t change anything about our friendship. I’m just — I think I’m maybe just in shock right now. I need some time to myself, OK?”

And then, before we had a chance to reply, he turned on his heel and paced off down the road.

“Should we go after him?” Izzy asked.

I wanted to, but I knew what Tom was going through. I’d been through the same panic and disbelief myself. I’d dealt with it by confiding in Izzy and figuring it out with her. Tom had a different way of handling things. I knew that. And so did Izzy. Tom dealt with worries in the same way he dealt with everything — in his brain, on his own, logically.

“He just needs some space to think things over. Let’s leave him for now. He’ll be all right in a couple of days, I’m sure,” I said, hoping it was true.

Izzy nodded. We walked in silence, each thinking our own thoughts.

Izzy was the first to speak. When she did, it turned out her thoughts were on the same lines as mine.

“You know it’s not just Tom, don’t you?” she said.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“We just need to find out who the third baby was, and then — ”

“No, we don’t,” I interrupted. Somewhere between Tom reminding me of Nancy’s words and Izzy breaking the silence, I’d already realized who the third person was. I wished I hadn’t. If you had asked me to compile a list of people I’d rather not be wrapped up in this adventure with, she’d have been somewhere near the top. But I couldn’t avoid the truth.

I’d seen her celebrating on the same day as me. I’d overheard her telling her friends how her daddy had bought her a pony for her twelfth birthday. I’d listened to the girls in my grade screeching with delight about her thirteenth birthday party. On the thirtieth of March.

Izzy looked at me quizzically. “You already know?”

I grimaced. “It’s Heather.”

Izzy looked blank for a moment. Then she registered what I’d said. “Heather Berry? Most-popular-girl-in-our-class?
That
Heather?”

I nodded. “I suppose there might be someone else in town with the same birthday, but my money’s on her.”

In fact, the more I thought about it, the more convinced I was. I thought back over the last few times I’d seen her — how she’d seemed different. Like that time outside the bathroom.

Then I remembered something else — her new ring!

Was it possible that she’d not only been affected by the serum like me, but that she also had a power like mine and already knew about it? If so, had she guessed that
I
had a superpower, too?

There was only one way to find out.

“Izzy,” I said. “We have to speak to Heather.”

“Yeah. Only trouble is, how do we do it without sounding insane — or scaring her off like we just did with Tom?”

I thought about it for a second. Then it came to me. “I’ve got another idea! A stakeout!”

“Yeah, we’ve already agreed on — ”

“No. A
double
stakeout. We do the lab tomorrow evening, but during the day . . .”

“A stakeout of Heather!”

“Exactly. We don’t let her know what we’re doing. We make it casual. Check out what she’s up to, see if there’s anything different about her. Be subtle and cool.”

“Hmm, subtle and cool. Not exactly our trademark qualities,” Izzy pointed out.

“Yeah. Well, you know. We’ll do our best.”

“And if subtle and cool doesn’t work, we could always just come out with it and ask her.”

I frowned. “Yeah. Maybe. As long as we can think of a way to say it without ending up at the school counselor’s office with a note saying we’ve lost our marbles.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Izzy agreed.

And for the first time in roughly . . . well, forever, I realized I was actually looking forward to Monday morning at school.

My first stakeout opportunity was second period — French. Izzy is in honors French. She’s in honors everything, actually. I hate French and always have. It’s the accent you have to put on when you speak it — I just can’t do it. I feel silly trying. I barely made it into French 2.

French must be the one chink in Heather’s perfect armor, because she’s in the same class.

Before Izzy and I headed separate ways at the end of the hall, Izzy shook my hand, like a general sending his most trusted soldier off to war. “Good luck,” she said solemnly. “Or should I say,
bonne chance
?”

“Same to you. See if you can catch up with Tom, check that he’s OK.”

“Will do,” Izzy agreed, and she went into her classroom.

I’d decided my strategy was going to be to start a conversation with Heather and see how she acted with me. I figured I should be able to sense whether there was something different about her.

The problem was, I hadn’t quite decided how to actually start the conversation. You can’t exactly walk up to someone with whom you’ve only ever traded dirty looks — apart from in French, when you are forced to talk to each other — and say, “Hi there, I know we’ve never really spoken, other than to say
‘Bonjour, je m’ appelle Jessica. Comment vous appelez-vous?’
in a very bad French accent, but I’ve recently found out that I’ve got a magical superpower and, hey, guess what! I think you might, too — even if you don’t know it yet — so I thought maybe we should try being friends!”

And I was pretty sure that wouldn’t be classified as secretly staking her out, either. I’d have to figure it out as I went along.

I walked through the door just before Ms. Hadley got there. I glanced around the room and there was just one seat left — next to Heather! Normally the worst seat I could have landed myself with; today it was ideal.

I slid in next to her and gave her a big smile. She glared at me, then looked away.

This wasn’t going to be easy.

A moment later, Ms. Hadley closed the door behind her and looked around the class. Her eyes zoned in on me. “Jessica, were you late?” she asked.

“Um. I don’t think so. I was here before you,” I said, with a cheeky smile, hoping she’d find me funny and cute.

“Détention,”
she said. In French.

I sighed as Ms. Hadley told us to get our books out. Then I nearly fell off my chair as Heather nudged me.

“Whoa. That was harsh,” she whispered.

“Thanks,” I said with a grimace. OK, so it wasn’t exactly “Hey, now that we’ve exchanged five words, let’s be BFFs,” but it was a start.

I spent the rest of the class with two aims. Aim one: avoid getting into any more trouble with the teacher. I achieved this, as she called me over at the end of class and said she’d decided to let me off the detention since I’d contributed so well, and could I please try to keep that up in the future.

Aim two: smile at Heather as many times as possible so that by the end of a forty-minute class she’d forget our year and a half of animosity and not walk off if I tried to start a conversation with her.

It was during one of these smile attempts that I noticed her hand. She was wearing that sparkly ring again. I was sure I’d never seen her wearing it before last Thursday. Admittedly, I didn’t look too closely at her as a rule, but it was bright yellow and shiny and definitely looked new. Might she have gotten it as a birthday present? Was it possible that my suspicion was right — that Heather had already discovered that she had a superpower?

At one point, she caught me staring and I glanced away, but not before noticing that her cheeks had flushed a little and that she quickly put her hand in her pocket.

A bolt of excitement surged through me. I was right! I was sure of it. Well, not
sure
— it was just a feeling, but a strong one. By the end of class, I was too impatient to spend the next few days secretly staking her out. If Heather was like me, I had to know. Now.

She was in front of me as we filed out of the classroom. Once we were in the hall, I seized the moment before my brain seized my courage.

“Hey,” I said in my best
now-that-we’ve-bonded-in-French-class-I’m-sure-you-regard-me-as-one-of-your-best-friends
voice.

Heather turned around.

“Nice ring,” I said, pointing at her finger.

Her face clouded over for a second. The way it might have if I’d said, “Hey, you’re looking a bit drab today. You almost look as plain as the rest of us.”

She recovered quickly, though, and gave me a tiny smile. “Thanks, it’s citrine,” she said, holding out her hand and looking at the ring. “It was a birthday present.”

“Me too!” I burst out. “I mean, I got something for my birthday, too!”

Duh! Most people do get presents on their birthday! Heather was giving me an
OK-I’m-going-to-walk-slowly-away-from-the-crazy-person-now
kind of look. I had to rescue this.

I reached under my shirt. “I mean, I got jewelry. A necklace. On my birthday. Same day as yours.” Smooth, Jess, smooth.

I watched Heather’s face for a reaction. I didn’t see one. Had I been wrong after all?

“Oh. Right,” Heather said. “The thirtieth of March?”

“Yep. Same day. Imagine that, huh?”

“I don’t . . . I mean, I didn’t realize it was your birthday, too.”

Obviously not, as you’re always too wrapped up in your own celebrations to notice anyone else around you
, I would normally have replied. Instead, I smiled and said, “Don’t worry about it. Anyway, belated happy birthday — and thanks for being nice to me in French.”

Heather gave me the kind of look you might give to a stalker you didn’t want to encourage but didn’t want to offend, either, because you’re a nice person.
Was
she actually a nice person and I’d never realized? “You’re welcome,” she said with what looked suspiciously like a shy smile.

Heather, shy? Nah, it was much more likely to be a sneer. She’d probably tell her friends all about the stupid conversation with the pathetic loser — aka me — as soon as she saw them.

But there was something about the way she smiled that spurred me on. Before I could stop myself, I gathered all my nerve and a bunch of words charged out of my mouth without checking with my brain first.

“Look. Um. If you’re not busy tomorrow at lunchtime, do you want to do something with me?”

“Do something with you?” Heather asked in a voice that was so full of shock I wondered for a second if I had actually asked her if she’d like to rappel off the Eiffel Tower on the back of an elephant.

“I . . . yeah, OK, sorry.” How on earth could I have thought Heather would want to spend time with me?

“I have volleyball Tuesdays at lunch,” she said.

In other words,
Leave me alone, loser
.

“Yeah. Of course,” I said. And then, I don’t know what made me do it — probably the thought that this might be my only chance — but I found myself still talking. “Look,” I went on. “If anything kind of . . . happens, or if anything has already happened, maybe something weird, that makes you wonder if we’ve got more in common than you thought . . . and you want to, kind of, you know, hang out, how about Wednesday, then? No pressure. I’ll be in the art room at lunchtime. Maybe see you there.”

For a moment, Heather almost looked scared — as if I’d just told her she’d been walking around with her skirt tucked into her underwear all day. Then she kind of shook her head and gave me her professional class-president smile. “OK, maybe,” she said, “if I’m not busy. But thanks either way,” she added, with one final
thank-you-please-leave-me-alone-now-you-weirdo
look.

“Anyway, got to go,” I said, and before I could dig myself into a bigger hole, I turned and left her there. The last thing I needed was to be late for my next class and get into trouble yet again.