Infinite (Strange and Beautiful, Book 1) (7 page)

“Was
Parker okay?” I felt stricken. Even though the other stuff wasn’t nice, it
hadn’t seemed particularly dangerous. This, though, had ended in physical
injury.

“He
lost a lot of blood and was in the hospital for a while, but he’s okay now,”
Tierney replied.

“What
happened with Mark?” Tegan asked.

“Nothing.”

“
Nothing?
”
Tegan and I exclaimed in disbelief.

“The
police went and talked to him, but Parker begged his parents not to press
charges,” Tierney replied. “He knew he’d be dead if he did.”

That
was some very unsettling news. It just didn’t make sense to me that he was able
to get away with all of these things. I got that he was clearly intimidating,
but someone had to be able to put a stop to his bullying, right?

At
least that was what I thought until the day I had my first encounter with Mark
Moses.

We’d
just finished a test in Spanish that I had spent hours studying for with Tegan
the night before. We were on our way to the cafeteria, and I was feeling pretty
good. I thought I’d done pretty well on the test, and it was also a Friday,
which was never a bad thing.

On
the way out the door that morning, I grabbed the first book I spotted. I hadn’t
made any visits to the library since school started. I knew I was in dire need
of a visit to the library soon. I was sure Rose, the head librarian, was
wondering what happened to me. I usually visited the library every other week
to find new reading material. I was sure Rose would have plenty of
recommendations she’d sat aside for me.

That
morning I didn’t have time to be choosy about my books because Skylar had
threatened to leave me if I didn’t hurry. It wasn’t until I got in the car that
I realized I was holding my copy of
Harry Potter and the Order of the
Phoenix
by J.K. Rowling. To someone else this might have been a horrible
thing since I’d just read
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,
and
reading
Order of the Phoenix
would require reading the series in
reverse, but I wasn’t too upset. At least I could say I knew
Harry Potter
backward and forward.

After
I had finished my Spanish test, I pulled out my book and started rereading it.
Sometimes when I was alone, I liked to read the books aloud in a British accent
that I was certain was horrible. Sometimes, even when I wasn’t reading, I’d
talk to myself in the British accent for fun. I got to say things like “bloody
hell,” “blimey,” “wicked,” and “knickers.” Luke usually got called a “git” or
“prat” a few times a week. This typically occurred after he’d used all of the
hot water. Sometimes I wished that I really had an accent. Everything sounded
so much cooler and distinguished with one.

I
was well into chapter two of the book when the bell rang to signal the end of
class. There were still a few people huddled over his or her tests. Probably
double checking all of their answers, which I never did because I just knew I’d
end up second-guessing myself and mess everything up.

As
Tegan and I left the classroom, I saw Mrs. Willis trying to pry the tests out
of a couple people’s hands. It was mostly the brownnosers and goodie two shoes
that had their hearts set on making into it colleges like Harvard, Yale, or
MIT. I hadn’t even thought about college yet. That seemed too far off to bother
worrying now.

Tegan
and I went to our lockers. Then we headed for the cafeteria, and I couldn’t
help but talk about the book. I had this horrible tendency to start jabbering
about the book I was currently reading, and I’d completely forget about
spoilers. Tegan hated it when I started talking about something she hadn’t read
yet and ruined the surprise for her. Luckily, she’d read the
Harry Potter
books; not nearly as many times as I had, but she still knew what I was on
about.

“I
can’t believe the movie for
Order of the Phoenix
won’t be out until next
July,” I whined. “I’m so anxious to see how they pull it all together.”

“I
wonder how much they’ll end up leaving out of it,” Tegan replied thoughtfully.
“I hated how much they cut out of
Goblet of Fire
.”

“Me
too,” I agreed. “But I guess I understand why they had to. It would have been
so long otherwise. Not that I would have had a problem with that.”

“Of
course you wouldn’t,” Tegan laughed. “You wouldn’t care if it was a twenty hour
movie as long as there were bathroom breaks.”

“Oh,
and you’d have a problem with it?” I countered. “I see the way you drool over
Rupert Grint.”

“I
prefer to call him Ron,” Tegan said with a laugh. “I just don’t feel right
calling him Rupert. That reminds me of an old man.”

I
laughed and shook my head. “Anyway, what I’m really anxious to see is the movie
for
Half-Blood Prince
,” I commented. “They just
can’t
cut out the
Ron and Lavender scenes. Especially the Won-Won part,” I grinned. I looked at
Tegan, and she laughed and started to reply, but she was quickly cut off when
we heard a voice behind us.

“Won-Won,
huh?”

Tegan
and I both turned together. I didn’t recognize the guy, and he was the sort a
person would remember if they’d seen him before. He was big and tall. Of
course, most people seemed tall compared to me, but this guy looked taller than
normal. Even though I usually wasn’t good at guessing these things, I was sure
he was well over six foot tall. Aside from height, though, he was also rotund.
I knew he wasn’t old enough to drink—he was in high school, after all—but the
plumpness of his midsection looked like a beer belly to me. But he wasn’t just
fat either. His arms were large, muscular and heavily tattooed. His body seemed
so at odds that it took me a minute to finally look at his face.

It
was then, when I looked up and saw the dark, greasy unkempt hair and the
multiple piercings in his ears and face, that I realized who had spoken. I’d
never actually seen Mark Moses up close before. A few times I’d heard people
murmur his name as he walked down the hall, but it was always from a distance,
which managed to make him look slighter.

Up
close, not only was he huge, it was easier to see why people found him so
menacing. Aside from the metal in his ears and lip, tattoos peaked out from
under his dark, worn clothes, and when he smiled—a smile that was anything but
friendly, his yellow teeth were somewhat jagged and yellow, making him look
more animal than boy.

Dark
eyes glittered as he crossed his thick arms over his chest, above the roundness
of his midsection. “Talking about a little Harry Potter, are we, children?”

I
glanced at Tegan, and she looked as confused as I felt. I wondered how long he
had been behind us before saying anything. He didn’t strike me as a
Harry
Potter
fan, so he must have been there for a while.

“Hey,
I asked you a question,” Mark snapped, and I jumped and looked back at him. He
was staring at me, so I nodded dumbly.

“Freshmen,”
he laughed coldly. “What’s your name, kid?”

He
was looking straight at me, and it was as if Tegan had disappeared into the
wall. I opened my mouth to answer, but I realized my mouth had gone dry. That
always happened when I was scared or nervous. I swallowed hard before I said,
“Silly Granger.”

“Silly?
What kind of name is that?” he laughed.

“It’s
short for Cecilia,” I mumbled.

“Oh,
it’s short for Cecilia, is it?” he said quietly, almost friendly. “Well,
Cecilia
,
why don’t you tell me how much money you have?”

“What?”
I replied, making a face. I felt Tegan nudge me in the side. No doubt to tell
me to do as he said. “I have five dollars.”

“Is
that all?” he questioned as if I were stupid enough to lie to him.

“Yes.”

“Well,
hand it over,” he said, stretching his big, beefy hands out toward me.

I
recoiled as I dug into my pocket and produced the five-dollar bill Mom gave me
before I left for school that morning.

“Thank
you, Cecilia,” he said with a devious grin as a couple of teachers appeared at
the end of the hallway. “It was a pleasure doing business with you,” he added.
“I’m sure we’ll meet again.”

Then
he walked away with a spring in his step.

“Are
you okay?” Tegan whispered. I turned to her. Her usually tanned face seemed
completely absent of all color, and I was sure mine was quite similar.

I
frowned and looked at my feet. “I’m fine.”

“Maybe
you should go to the office and talk to the principal,” she said.

“What?
No way,” I replied. “You’ve heard what he’s done to other people who ratted him
out.”

“So
what are you going to do then?” Tegan asked.

“I’m
going to go to lunch, and, hopefully, you’ll let me borrow some money so I can
get something to eat.”

Tegan
looked like she wanted to argue, but finally she just nodded.

Needless
to say, I was pretty jumpy for the rest of the day. I made it a point to get
lost in the sea of people between classes for fear of seeing Mark Moses again.
I didn’t have any more money, and I didn’t want to think of what he might do
next. A head down the toilet sounded like getting off easy compared to some of
the other stuff he pulled. He was big, ugly and creepy, and I was scared to
death of him.

Skylar
was always threatening to leave
me behind. Pretty much every morning after breakfast and once we’d arrived at
school, Skylar would say, “If you’re not out in the car by the time I’m ready
to leave, I’ll leave without you.”

On
a couple of occasions I’d told her, “You sound just like Mom,” who I knew she
got the threat from. Telling Skylar she sounded like Mom was a sure fire way to
earn one of her patented glares, but sometimes it was worth it.

The
thing was, though, while I knew Mom would never
actually
leave me, I
wasn’t so sure the same could be said for Skylar until the day she actually
left without me.

In
her defense, I was pretty sure she didn’t do it on purpose. Or so I hoped
anyway.

Normally,
I was pretty vigilant about making sure I got out to the car as quickly as
possible if I was riding home with Skylar, but on that particular day things
didn’t go as planned.

It
was a week after my run in with Mark Moses, who I’d been sure to avoid like the
plague by blending into the crowds at all times. After the last bell of the
day, I said my goodbyes to Tegan. She had informed me at lunch that she and
Tierney had plans after school, and they wouldn’t be able to give me a ride
home. Because she’d been so tightlipped when I asked about her plans, I
suspected it had something to do with my upcoming birthday, but I didn’t voice
my suspicions and decided to let Tegan think she was being sneaky.

I
was at my locker getting my things together when Annabelle Jansen, the elected
editor of the school newspaper, walked up to me. I had only talked to her a few
times in class, so I didn’t know her well, but she seemed nice enough. I’d
heard Skylar talk about her in the past; she’d called her an overachiever, but
I just shrugged it off as sour grapes. Not that Skylar was competitive in the
academic department or anything, but she always seemed to have a problem with
anyone who was better than her at something.

Some of
the other seniors in our Journalism class could seem a little intimidating at
times, but Annabelle had a nice smile that immediately set me at ease. She was
also pretty fair about taking things into consideration when someone made a
suggestion for the paper.

“Hey,
Silly,” she said, adjusting the bag she had slung over her shoulder. “Can I
talk to you for a minute?”

“Sure,”
I nodded, shutting my locker and then following her into the nearest empty
classroom. I was extremely curious about why she wanted to talk to me. I could
only assume it was to do with the newspaper, but since I really didn’t do
anything very important, I couldn’t even begin to guess why.

Before
I could ask what was up, though, she said, “As you know, we only have so much
room in the newspaper.” I nodded and she went on. “I know you were very
interested in doing a review column.”

“Yes,”
I agreed. It had just been a fleeting idea, but it had been shelved for the
time being in favor of the advice column Carley Hendricks was doing.

“As it
turns out, we have an opening. Carley just told me that she has to have her
tonsils taken out at the end of the week. She hasn’t even started on her
column, and the paper will run in a couple of weeks. Mr. Hensley and I
discussed it, and we wondered if you’d be interested in doing your review
column.”

“Sure!”
I exclaimed with more enthusiasm than was probably necessary. When the idea had
been shelved, Mr. Hensley and Annabelle had both suggested it might be a good
column for the next edition of the paper. Even then, though, I’d figured that
someone else would probably get to write it, so I was thrilled to be offered
the chance.

“Terrific,”
Annabelle grinned broadly as her shoulders relaxed, as if she’d been worried I might
turn the offer down. “Maybe you could make a list of books or movies you might
consider reviewing, and then we could discuss your ideas tomorrow during
class.”

I
agreed readily, and Annabelle stepped out of the classroom with a smile and
wave.

Then
I just stood there for a moment with a grin plastered on my face. I’d been so
disappointed when I’d first found out that not everyone would be able to write
an article for the paper each month and some of us would have to edit and help
get things ready to sell. I’d expected to be doomed to selling or putting the
paper together, so actually getting to write something was pretty exciting. I
couldn’t wait to call Tegan and tell her, and with that thought, I hurried out
to the parking lot to catch a ride with Skylar.