It's Only Temporary (5 page)

“Y
ou should eat a more substantial breakfast, darling,” Gran told Skye the first day of school, representatives from all the known food groups arrayed around her own breakfast plate like an admiring audience. “A multigrain toaster waffle, at least,” she suggested, peering at Skye's half-eaten energy bar with suspicion. “Maybe with a little apple butter on it.”

“I'm too nervous to eat that much,” Skye said, sliding her sketchbook into her book bag, having pasted an ordinary spiral notebook cover onto the front the night before to make it less noticeable. A secret artist was the best kind to be, Skye had decided – especially if
you wanted to be invisible in a brand-new school. That way, you could draw exactly what you wanted to draw, the way you wanted to draw it.

Art was something no one could take away from you, no matter
where
the grown-ups in your life made you move.

Gran leaned back in her chair and gave Skye a smile so wide that her face creased like the top of a dinner roll. “You're excited, not nervous,” she informed Skye. “But it's the same thing, scientifically speaking.”

“I'm pretty sure I'm nervous, Gran,” Skye objected, secretly annoyed.

Gran shrugged. “If you want to argue with science,” she said, carefully layering cheese and turkey on a piece of toast.

“I'd better go,” Skye told her, looking away before she hurled – because, scientifically speaking, that's what she thought she was about to do.

“But it's just a fifteen-minute walk to school,” Gran protested, the sagging piece of toast halfway to her mouth. “And Maddy isn't here yet. I thought you two could walk to school together,” she added, looking pleased with herself. “You've both been through orientation, but it'll be nice to have some company the first day, won't it?”

“
Maddy
?” Skye asked, startled. True, they'd been hanging out a little over the past three weeks, the way you're basically forced to do with neighbor kids your same age,
but Skye had already seen Maddy freak out twice so far: once when a favorite TV show was canceled for a news conference, and once when Maddy's dad mistakenly brought home pizza with green peppers on it, which Maddy said ruined the entire pizza for good.

“I just like things to be right,” Maddy had tried to explain when that pizza crisis was over.

“Well, everyone does,” Skye replied, struggling to keep her voice steady.

“Yes, but I
need
things to be right,” Maddy had insisted.

What was up with Maddy? Skye didn't know, and all Gran would tell her was,
“Everyone's got something they have to deal with, and so does Maddy.”

Maybe so, Skye thought now – but she knew she wanted to be alone when she first walked into her temporary new school. Because how was she supposed to blend in, or better yet, be invisible, with someone as unpredictable as Maddy attached to her side?

It was just too risky.

“Look, Gran, we
can't
walk to school together,” Skye exclaimed. “You should have asked me first,” she added, so angry that she felt as if she was about to start crying. “I wanted to walk to school alone today. And I can choose my own friends, by the way, if I even want to bother having any in Sierra Madre, which I don't! Just because Maddy and I are the same age, that doesn't mean– “

Gran had put down her toast and was gazing at Skye, seemingly stunned, when the doorbell rang. “That'll be Maddy,” Gran said softly.

“Oh, all right. Have it your way,” Skye yelled, and she grabbed her book bag and slammed out of the warm, cozy kitchen, leaving her grandmother staring after her in confusion and dismay.

“Okay, we're here,” Skye said after what felt like the longest, most silent fifteen minutes of her life. “You have your schedule, right? And you know where your locker is?”

“Yes,” Maddy said. A warm breeze ruffled her medium-short hair, which was pretty and blond, but Maddy had worn a T-shirt with a babyish cartoon character on the front – in spite of the obvious fact that she clearly wasn't a baby.

“Well, okay then,” Skye said as kids of every size, shape, and description shoved past them, stampeding herdlike up the school's front steps. “See you.”

“At two forty-five
P.M
.,” Maddy said in her usual precise way.

Skye bit her lip and wished her grandmother had heard this.
See what you've done?
she felt like saying to Gran. “But if I don't show up, Maddy,” Skye said, trying to be nice, “just walk home alone, okay? Don't wait around for me.”

“No, I'll be right here, Skye,” Maddy said, staring at the ground. “I don't mind waiting for extended periods of time.”

Skye sighed, then turned away and stomped up the steps, heading for her locker. Her assigned locker was on the first floor, in the main hallway, and she'd practiced unlocking it several times after orientation, having easily memorized the combination.

Today, however, she couldn't get it to open.

“I think that one's mine,” a squeaky voice said in her ear. “Number fifty-seven.” It was a confident-looking girl Skye had noticed at orientation.

“Oh,” Skye said, blushing. “I'm sorry. I thought it said fifty-one.”

“No big deal,” the girl said, shrugging. “We can trade, if this is your lucky number or something.”

“I didn't
want
this one,” Skye tried to explain. “I just made a mistake, that's all. See how the numbers are sort of funny?”

“Well, no big deal,” the girl said again, after peering politely at the numbers, and Skye crept off to her locker feeling like the biggest fool in the world.

She spent so long pretending to be busy at her locker, trying to regain her composure, that the hall was nearly empty when she finally looked up. Suddenly, a noisy group of boys tumbled down the stairs like a mini-avalanche, and they began pushing and shoving their way through the hall, seeming to pick up speed as they went. The boys – five or six of them – churned past Skye without even seeing her, but Maddy was standing frozen in their path just a few yards away.

Maddy had been watching her, Skye realized, startled, but she hadn't known enough to get out of the boys' way.

“Hey, it's a girl,” one of the boys said, stumbling against Maddy and grabbing hold of her arm – to steady himself, Skye thought, but she couldn't be sure. The boys were
crowding around Maddy now, and it was difficult to see what was happening.

“He finally got a girl,” a second boy said, laughing. “Even if it is just a sixth-grader.”

“Go ahead, Cord,” the biggest boy said. “Let's hear you talk some game!”

“Give it up,” a fourth boy said in a drawling, too-cool voice. “She's a
re
-tard.”

“Ease up, Aaron,” a different boy protested.

Skye wanted to do something to shut them up, or at least to make the first boy let go of Maddy, but she couldn't move. Everything was happening so fast that it didn't seem real. Maybe she truly
was
invisible, Skye thought suddenly. After all, those boys hadn't seen her, and–

But no. Maddy saw her. The girl's brown eyes were dark
with fear, and Skye took a concrete-footed step forward in spite of herself.

And, as if they were one, the boys turned to look at Skye just as the warning bell rang. “Aw, let her loose,” the biggest boy said, pulling the first boy – Aaron? – away from Maddy. “Let's go, dude, or they're gonna sweat us.”

And like that, the avalanche of boys melted away.

Skye and Maddy looked at each other for one long, white-faced moment, and then Skye turned away–ashamed, and angry with Maddy, though she couldn't have said why.

S
kye hid in the girls' room for almost twenty minutes after school let out, hoping Maddy would walk home alone, but Maddy was still waiting for her at the bottom of the school's front steps a little after three. “Hello, Skye,” she said, not seeming irritated at all by the delay. And, in spite of what had happened in the hall that morning, Maddy looked cheerful.