The Adoration of Jenna Fox (7 page)

"Stop!" The disc obeys.
A blanket.
A blue one. A canteen.

I think I know what comes next.

A flutter runs through me.
I know.
I
picture a scene, fully formed. Jenna, cross-legged on a blue plaid blanket on
the sand. A mug of steaming hot chocolate in my hands. Hot chocolate with three
fat marshmallows. I
loved
hot chocolate. Taste! I am shocked at my first
memory of taste. How could I forget taste? Chunk after chunk pieces together.
It is like a window has been opened and memories are breezing through it. Days.
Weeks. Three weeks of details collect and run through my mind, every one
remembered and sharp.

I pull myself closer to the screen on my desk.
My head vibrates. "Play," I command. The scene shifts from the
campfire to me. I'm sitting on a blue blanket. I lift a mug of hot chocolate to
my lips and offer a frothy, chocolate-mustached grin.

"Stop." I lay my head on my desk. I
close my eyes and soak in what it means.

 
I
knew.
A whole chunk of
my life is mine again.

Three whole weeks' worth. It seems like a
lifetime.

My eyes blink open. "Mother!" I call.
I race from my room and down the stairs to the kitchen. "Lily!"

No one answers. I see Mother out the window,
talking with a workman and pointing to panes in the greenhouse. Lily is no
doubt somewhere within. I run to the pantry and search for ingredients. I pull
cocoa and then sugar from the shelves.
Marshmallows! Lily has marshmallows,
too!
I tuck the bag beneath my arm and let them all tumble onto the kitchen
counter. Milk! A sauce pot! I remember! I pour. I stir. I make sense of a stove
I have never used before. I feel full, powerful, like I haven't felt since I
woke up.
I'm making hot chocolate. I love hot chocolate!
I search the
cupboards for a mug. I pull the largest one I can find from the shelf and pour
the steaming mixture in. I rip open the bag of marshmallows, and just as I plop
them in, Lily and Mother come in through the back door. They stop and stare at
me and the helter-skelter mess I have made.

"I remember! I love hot chocolate!"

I raise the mug like a toast to celebrate this
new memory. I expect a smile
—at least from
Mother—but instead, as I bring the mug to my lips, her face wrinkles in horror
and she yells, "No!"

Taste

Maybe I don't like hot chocolate.

And maybe the three weeks' worth of
memories aren't real at all.

Maybe I don't remember sneaking on
makeup in the bathroom at school.

Or completing a double pirouette and
finishing as gracefully as if I really did have wings.

Or snuggling on the sofa with a
golden dog I named Hunter.

The hot chocolate was tasteless.

Just like my nutrients.

I know you can forget a lot of
things,

but how can you forget taste?

When the mug slipped from my
fingers.

Lily caught it.

And hardly any spilled on the floor.

School

I'm certain it is Claire's fault. Everything.
Why does she whimper and cower so? Is she guilty? She cried when I dropped the
mug. I wanted to hit her.
It's mine,
dammit
. Mine.
But it must be hers, too, with the way she takes it on. It is like she owns
every shortcoming I have. Maybe she just plain owns me. She tried to explain it
away.
It's temporary. Your taste will return. You shouldn't have food
anyway.
I spent the next hour locked in my bathroom, staring at my tongue.
It's normal. Rough and pink and fleshy. What's wrong is somewhere else inside.
Something that is disconnected within me. I don't trust her. She hovers,
smiles, cries, and controls. Too much of everything. I need to get away from
her.

I open the car door. She opens hers, too.

"No," I say. "I'm seventeen. I
can do this on my own."

"But, Jenna
—"

I've learned how to smile in the space of just
a few short weeks. I'm learning how to control, too. "Claire," I say
to hold her to the seat.

She shuts her door. "That again?" she
says, looking straight ahead. She is hurt. Everything backs up inside me.
School, control, distrust, and doubt, they all get shoved behind the hurt on
her face.

I hear words, words from long ago that were
snarled inside me.
I'm sorry. So sorry.
Words that were trapped in my head
and couldn't be said, frozen behind lips that wouldn't move. And that made me
want to say them more.

It's okay, darling. It's all right.
Shhh
. Everything will be fine.
Claire answering over and over again when I
hadn't even spoken, looking into my eyes and reflecting all the pain she saw.

I get out of the car and lean down, looking at
her through the window. Claire forces a smile. Her eyes cling to me.
I'm so
sorry.
She rolls down the window. I say a dozen more redundant things
—things we have already discussed—just to keep her
from talking. I will take my afternoon nutrients. I will not discuss the
accident. I will be outside at three o'clock. I will call if I need her. I'm
afraid she will have a last-minute change of heart, will control me in that way
she does and force me back into the car just by saying my name. It is like we
are both fighting for control of Jenna Fox.

"I'll be fine," I finally say, and
thankfully, like a miracle, she leaves without saying another word.

I turn and face the village charter. School. It
is nothing more than an abandoned real estate office. I see the defunct sign
dismantled and leaning against the side, almost obscured by overgrown weeds.
Dusty blinds hang in the windows. A pale coat of yellow paint makes a faint attempt
at sprucing it up. It looks more like an old farmhouse. Maybe it once was.
Their emphasis is ecosystems? I went to a central academy in Boston
—Claire told me—but even before she confirmed it, I knew. I
remember when Kara, Locke, and I ditched a seminar. We were afraid but hoped we
wouldn't be missed among the hundreds of students who were in our class. I
don't know what a charter is like except that it is small. Hundreds, maybe
thousands of students smaller than an academy. They go to school only a few days
a week. What kind of students choose to go to such a small, run-down
school
when they could attend an academy with everyone else? It is different in every
way, but since I can't remember too much about the old ways, it shouldn't
matter to me.
Why did I want to go to school again?

I walk up the steps and go inside.

Dane

"You must be Jenna."

The room is small. I could almost spread my
arms out and touch each wall. It holds a desk and a large round woman, who is
smiling at me. She already knows my name. I stare at her shocking orange hair.

I want to leave and flag down Claire.

"It is Jenna, right?"

"Yes," I say. "Who are
you?"

"Mitch." She remains seated but holds
out her hand. I take it. It is puffy and hot and amazingly strong as she
squeezes my fingers tight. "I'm the facilitator, which means I do about
everything around here."

"Except pull weeds?"

She hesitates for a moment and then laughs.
"You're going to fit right in around here, Jenna." She reaches behind
her and hands me a small
Netbook
. "I just need
you to fill out a questionnaire and then I'll take you back with the
others."

I am relieved that the questions are basic,
mostly wanting to know my interests and what I see as my strengths and weaknesses. 
Strengths? Easy. I don't hold grudges. It's difficult to hold a grudge when you
can't remember what they are. Weaknesses? Would forgetful be understating it? I
go for something easier to interpret. Strength: History buff. Weakness: None.
The last question makes me pause: Why did you choose a school with an ecosystem
emphasis?

 I didn't. Claire did.

"Finished?" Mitch asks.

Close enough. "Yes." I close the
Netbook
and hand it back to her. I remember why I wanted to
come to school. I need friends, Not questions. I have enough of those already.

"Fine then, let's go meet the other
students
—and Dr. Rae. She's your principal
teacher. Director, really. Most of the curriculum is self-guided, and each of
you takes on the role of collaborator-teacher. But she will tell you all about
that." She slides the
Netbook
into a file with
four others, stands, and guides me through a doorway and down a hall that
creaks under her heavy footsteps.

She opens the last
door, and I follow her in. It is a large room with modern furnishings. At one
end are chairs and three long library desks. At the other end of the room are a
half dozen Net stations. In the center, taking up most of the room, are two
worn leather couches and four sling chairs. I note that the chairs' fabric matches
Mitch's cheddar-cheese hair. Two boys and one girl occupy them. None of them
look like they could be a Dr. Rae.

"Where's Rae?" Mitch asks.

"She's conferencing," the
girl offers.

Mitch raises her eyebrows. "With Mr.
Collins, I presume?"

No one answers. I conclude it wasn't a question
because Mitch appears satisfied and moves on. "Let me introduce Jenna.
She's going to be joining your group."

The boy whose back is to me stands up, turns,
and I recognize him. He is the boy from the mission with the dirty hands and
black hair. "Ethan," he says. He doesn't offer a smile or a hand, but
his eyes are clearly focused on mine.

The girl struggles to get up. She has a brace
in each hand. "I hope to lose these soon," she says. She tucks one
brace under her arm and reaches out her other hand. "I'm
Allys
." Her hand is stiff and cool.

Mitch turns, not waiting for the rest of the
introductions. "Rae will be in soon, I'm sure. Carry on," she says as
she leaves.

The other boy steps forward, wipes his palms on
his jeans, and then stuffs them in his pockets, apparently deciding not to
offer one after all. He is thin and small. "I'm Gabriel. Hi."

"Hello," I say to them all.
"Where's the rest of your class?"

"This is it, cupcake. Welcome to Freaks
Unlimited."

I spin around. A young man fills the doorway.

"Shut up, Dane."

Dane ignores Ethan and smiles at me. "So
this is our latest addition.
Very
nice. Ethan's right for once
—nothing freakish about you." He carefully looks
me over, like he is trying to decide something. "We've met?"

"A couple days ago. I was outside
—"

"My house. Yes. I remember. So
you're
Jenna
Fox."

I never told him my last name.
Did Mitch?

Dane saunters past me and plops onto the couch.
He is full of smiles. He seems to be the happiest of the group.

"You can put your stuff in there, if you
like,"
Allys
tells me, pointing to a cabinet
behind the library tables. All I have is a small knapsack containing my vial of
nutrients, but I go ahead and walk to the other end of the room to put it away.

"Wrong!" Dane calls out. "I
stand corrected. You
are
one of us."

I turn back to him. "Pardon me?" I
say.

"Your feet?"

"Leave it, Dane."

"What? We're supposed to pretend she
doesn't walk funny? Right,
Allys
. And you've got all
your digits, and Ethan has a magnetic personality."

"Eat it," Ethan says and falls back
into one of the sling chairs.

Gabriel slinks into the corner and sits at a
Net station, looking small and thankful to be under the radar.

Allys
works her way back to her chair.
"Learn to ignore him, Jenna. The rest of us do."

I walk funny?

"It's okay," I say. "I had an
—"
Don't discuss the accident.
"—an
illness. I'll be better soon."

"That's what we all say," Dane
answers.

Dr. Rae breezes into the room. "Jenna,
you're here. Welcome! And you've all been getting acquainted. That's
nice."

Nice.

I need to look that word up again.

Ethan