In the Image of Grace (19 page)

“Yes,” I announced. “Is that what you all want to
know because I don’t look any different today than I did yesterday,
but yes it’s true, if that’s what you all want to know.” Nobody
responded or said anything. They all just stared at me. I pulled my
sweater sleeves all the way over my hands and tried to preoccupy
myself with that action while everybody just stared.

The rest of the class was spent in awkward silence.
The rest of my whole day was actually quiet awkward.

In division I went and sat next to Rain again. I
figured she probably at least hopefully wouldn’t just straight up
stare at me. I was right. She just said hi when I sat down.

“Hey,” I sighed.

“Long day already,” she inquired.

“Yes,” I murmured as a few other students walked
slowly into the room staring at me.

“That has to obnoxious,” Rain speculated noticing the
staring.

“Severely.”

“Is it true though?” She asked.

“Yes,” I responded.

“Well, I think it’s kinda cool,” Rain said.

“Yeah?”

“Yes, it makes you unique.”

After she said that I wanted to correct her and tell
her how it made me so very un-unique, but she was trying to be
nice, so I just smiled in response.

The day couldn’t end quick enough. I just wanted to
go outside and smell some fresh air, so that’s what Jeremy and I
did after I got my pass and went to the library. He took me to the
courtyard of the school. We sat on a cement bench around the
school’s beautiful, blooming, fall garden and breathed in the fresh
air. It was nice and quite there and I was able to be outside, but
remained unseen by any reporters, protected by the brick walls of
the school. I pulled my feet up on the bench and wrapped my arms
around my knees.

“I don’t know how I’m going to put up with this all.
It hasn’t even been a whole day and it all is getting to me
already.”

“You’re strong Charlotte,” Jeremy reassured me with
the utmost gentleness in his eyes.

“Thankfully I have you,” I said feeling such strong
emotions for him. I didn’t know if it could be love because it was
so soon, but I knew it was something, but then I was never in love
with somebody before, so how was I to know what it felt like, or
how quick it could happen.

Jeremy smiled bashfully at me, “And I have you.”

………………………………………………..

After school Isabelle, Clarissa and Jeremy all met me
by my locker. We were thinking of ways to slip out of school. As we
brainstormed Clarissa waved hi to her many male adorers as they
passed and said hello to her with sweetness in their voices.

“Me being a clone doesn’t seem to affect them,”
Clarissa quipped with a big smile on her face.

Jeremy smirked at her and Isabelle shook her
head.

“Do we just go out the front door?” I asked knowing
the hordes of people that were outside waiting for us.

Rain, whose locker was a few down from mine,
overheard what I said. She closed her locker and walked over.
“Hey,” she said shaking her shoulders and adjusting her backpack
into place. “Do you guys want a ride home?”

“Oh, thank you,” I said, “but you don’t have to do
that.”

“No, it’s all right,” she nodded. She pointed at
Jeremy. “He can come too.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, it’s cool. Then you won’t have to go through
all that craziness cuz we’ll go out the back right into the parking
lot and the reporters and crazies and such can’t get close enough
cuz they have to stay on the public sidewalk. Then we can zoom
outta here,” she said making like a rocket with her hand.

“That would be so fantastic. Thanks,” I crowed with
much appreciation.

“C’mon,” Rain nodded waving over her shoulder.

We all followed her out of school to her car which
looked like an old police cruiser. Clarissa hopped up front with
Rain and Isabelle, Jeremy and I all sat in the back.

We were barely able to drive down our street when we
got there. There wasn’t all that much room to begin with, with cars
parked on both sides like normal, but then there were also TV vans
double parked.

“There’s no where I can pull in or over or anything,”
Rain marveled looking at the buzz of activity on our street. “How
do they even know where you live?”

“I’m sure our supposed father has something to do
with it,” I sputtered through my gritted teeth. “Just let us out
here I guess. We’ll just have to plow through them all.”

“Sure,” Rain said stopping the car and putting it
into park.

We were a couple buildings away from our house, but
we couldn’t get any closer.

“Can you go through the back?” Rain asked.

“No, we have to get buzzed in through the front,” I
responded not really wanting to get out of the car.

“That sucks,” Rain remarked looking over her shoulder
at me.

“Okay, here it goes,” I mumbled under my breath as I
opened the car door. I said thanks and we all got out.

As soon as I opened the car door the reporters and
photographers were quick to know it was us. A flood of people
rushed towards us. Jeremy led the way holding my hand and I held
Isabelle’s and she held Clarissa’s. Besides all the reporters,
camera crews and photographers there were more crazies with signs
and people shouting things. We tried to run, but there were too
many people obstacles in our way. We got to our front gate and hit
the buzzer. Waiting for Ms. Dunderfeltz to buzz us in felt like an
eternity. Reporters with microphones shouted stupid questions at
us.

“Did you know all along?”

“Do you feel proud being the first cloned human
children?”

“Are you really from another planet?” And so on and
so forth.

The gate buzzed. We pushed it open and all of us ran
to the house without looking back. Ms. Dunderfeltz opened the door
and held her hand up when Jeremy was about to walk in.

“I was told not to let him in,” Ms. Dunderfeltz said
with finality.

I still held Jeremy’s hand. I looked from Ms.
Dunderfeltz to him. “I’ll call you later,” I said as I was pushed
into the house by Ms. Dunderfeltz. Jeremy waved and walked towards
the mob that awaited him. The three of us were inside. Ms.
Dunderfeltz shut the door and went straight to the alarm to set it.
Once again we were imprisoned. I went into the front room, pulled
back the drapes and watched as Jeremy was assaulted by reporters.
He held up his hands in front of his face and dashed through the
pool of bodies. I sighed, went straight upstairs and ripped off my
coat and bag and collapsed onto my bed. I dozed off and went
straight into a horrible nightmare. I couldn’t even call it a dream
anymore. The screaming was so loud and I wanted to wake up so
badly. My whole body was paralyzed in fear. I couldn’t breathe. I
kept spitting something out of my mouth, something organic like
dirt. My lungs were being filled with it and finally when I
couldn’t take anymore my eyes snapped open and I couldn’t stop
screaming. I sat up trying to calm myself down, but I couldn’t stop
screaming. I pulled at my hair. I pulled down at it hard trying to
stop the screaming. Isabelle and Clarissa ran into the room.

“Charlotte, Charlotte, it’s okay,” Isabelle said
trying to pry my fingers open to release the grip on my hair.

Clarissa came and sat next to me and rubbed my back.
With their company I finally relaxed some and started breathing and
stopped screaming.

“The dream,” Isabelle concluded.

I nodded yes looking down at my hair I held in my
hands. “This all has to stop. I can’t take it anymore,” I cried
stating the truth. “Not just the dreams, everything.”

“I know,” Isabelle affirmed hugging me.

“And this is just the beginning. I just don’t
know.”

“We’ll get through this together,” Isabelle said, but
she didn’t sound too sure of herself.

“Hey, we stole Ms. Dunderfeltz’s TV,” Clarissa
quipped with a wicked smile trying to lighten the mood.

The rest of the evening we spent watching the little
TV in my bedroom, most of what we watched wasn’t very uplifting.
Some reported if the claims were true or not and others talked
about how people are playing God. The ones I didn’t like the most
were the ones that talked about how we are the first, so nobody is
still too sure what the end result would be. I was starting to
wonder if some of the stuff they were saying on TV was true. Were
we really being robbed of the chance to be our own unique
individuals? Did we qualify as real humans or were we just some
manufactured sub-species? I mean what is it exactly that does make
one human? Next to complex though processes and the ability to feel
emotions, what makes you human? Since we weren’t conceived like
everybody else were we out of the running?

The next morning we were greeted by a flood of
madness outside the house. The water started to spread as word got
around, TV cameras, photographers and random onlookers all greeted
us, along with signs that said, Stop playing God, and signs saying,
The girls are the future, and people still shouted the same
questions as the day before. The only glimmer of comfort for the
morning was Jeremy waiting on the other side of the fence in the
midst of the madness, swatting away microphones that were being
shoved in his face and bouncing on his heels while he anxiously
waited for us to depart.

I didn’t want to go outside. I was afraid I was going
to drown in the flood, but Jeremy was my life preserver in a way.
As we opened the gate we were enveloped by bodies. Jeremy put his
arms around Isabelle and I and Clarissa held my hand as we forged
ahead through the crowd. We tried not to look at anybody, just the
path that lay in front, but peripherally I could see the people
that were craning their necks to get a glance at us, but you could
tell some of the people crowding the sidewalk looked genuinely
angry. One of them screamed out that we were abominations and would
burn in hell. I’m pretty sure he was with one of the religious
groups that were out there.

We got a couple houses away when Jeremy said, “Um,
we’re picking up the pace.” The four of us started to jog down the
block. I glanced over my shoulder and saw why we were quickening
our pace. People armed with cameras were following us and then
chasing us as we set out into a full run. Jeremy held mine and
Isabelle’s hand and I had Clarissa’s as we were being chased down
the sidewalk. I couldn’t believe that people were actually chasing
us and that Reginald did nothing to protect us or our identities or
anything. He was probably just thrilled that he was getting so much
recognition for his accomplishment. He had no cares that we were
about to be devoured. There were sharks in the flood water. As we
neared the corner where we cross for the bus the sharks slowed
down. They were just probably going to their cars so they could
drive to our school and set out on attack once again while
there.

The light changed in perfect time. We ran across the
street. We paused at our normal bus stop and decided to run down to
the next just to get a little farther away. We ran past a fast food
restaurant, a small golf shop and some residential buildings and
crossed a side street, went some more until we got to the safety of
the next stop, all the while not letting go of each others’ hands.
We stopped at the bus stop pink and breathless. It seemed we had
lost the sharks.

“This is insane,” I cried out loud to my sisters and
Jeremy. They all nodded in agreement. We seemed safe for a moment,
but then I spotted a photographer across the street stealing
snapshots of us. We only waited a few minutes for the bus, but it
seemed like an eternity.

………………………………………………………

I was standing in front of my locker pulling my coat
off trying to ignore the penetrating stares of my classmates.
Jeremy was coming back down the hall. He went to drop his stuff off
at his locker. He threw me a smile from the end of the hallway,
walking his usual slouchy walk. He strolled towards me wearing
jeans that were long past their day of death and a striped
shirt.

A couple of kids I didn’t know cut in front of
Jeremy’s path and started heading my way. They were both rather
big, close to Jeremy’s height, but much heftier. The one had a face
that looked like a ham and the other had a rat tail for a mustache.
They quickly strode up to me and stopped next to my locker smiling.
I did my best to ignore them hanging up my coat.

The one with the rat tail smiled just showing his top
teeth and the ham faced one said, “I hear you’re an alien or
something.”

In my head I cursed Reginald and his cult.

“Are you really green and scaly under your clothes?”
Ham faced guy asked reaching out and trying to pull up the bottom
of my tee-shirt.

Jeremy quickly appeared and shoved the guy backwards.
“Don’t you touch her.”

Ham faced guy, who was named Mike, shoved Jeremy
back, right into the lockers. Jeremy straightened himself up.
“Dude, I don’t wanna fight ya. Just leave her alone.”

“Oooh, the sensitive boyfriend,” Mike taunted waving
his hands around in the air.

Jeremy took a step forward. They were pretty much eye
to eye. “Just get out of here,” Jeremy threatened with his voice
rising in volume a bit.

“Don’t want people near your freaky ass girlfriend.
She shouldn’t even be alive.”

Jeremy’s whole head turned bright red and he bit his
lip. His hands were balled into fists at his side. He was breathing
deeply through his nose. At that point people in the hall started
to turn and look in our direction. They weren’t staring at me.

Mike’s friend, who was named Austin, stood near with
his arms crossed and his stupid grin. I stood back in my locker not
sure what to do. Jeremy glanced in my direction. Mike shoved Jeremy
again, as if saying hey, did you hear what I just said about your
girlfriend. Jeremy flexed his fingers on his right hand, re-balled
them and then punched Mike square in the jaw. Mike looked quite
stunned as he stumbled backwards reaching up and touching his face.
Jeremy looked stunned too, as with all the other people that were
gathered around watching. Nobody actually thought that Jeremy was
going to punch him. Mike attempted to swing a punch back, but
Jeremy ducked out of the way and stepped to the side. Jeremy then
turned in my direction and nodded with his head as in saying let’s
get out of here.