The Gifting (4 page)

“Oh, just in time,” Mrs. Finch, the long-lobbed receptionist says. “This is Leela McNeil and Scott Shroud. Tess, Leela will be helping you find your classes and introducing you to teachers and students. Pete, Scott will be doing the same for you.”

Pete towers over Scott by at least a foot. My brother is fifteen and already six foot two. He doesn’t have the muscles to fill out the frame—not by a long shot—but you can tell one day he will. He hitches one strap of his backpack higher over his shoulder and takes his schedule from Mrs. Finch.

“Have a great first day, dear,” she says.

Without saying anything to me, Pete steps out of the office. Leela watches him go with an all-too familiar look, her cheeks tinged the same color as Scott’s ears. He scrambles after my brother with a slightly dazed expression—as if he’s the new student and Pete is the ambassador.

Mrs. Finch hands me my schedule and I can’t help but stare at her earlobes. They look like pulled taffy, only no earrings weigh them down.

“Thank you,” I say and then follow Leela out into the noisy hallway. Pete and Scott are already gone.

“I’m so excited to meet you, Tess.” Leela sticks out her hand. “We never ever get new students, so even though I applied to be an ambassador my freshman year, this is the first time I’ve actually been able to put my training to any sort of use.”

We shake hands and I wonder what sort of training an ambassador has to go through. Firm handshakes? Friendly smiles? Leela has both of those nailed. She snags my schedule—not in a rude
gimme-it
sort of way, but in an
I’m-so-excited-to-see-if-we-have-any-of-the-same-classes
sort of way. It’s kind of endearing. So is her subsequent squeal. “We have the first two periods together. And lunch!” Her eyes go a little wide. “Oh, but you must be super smart. Honors English and Honors Physics as a junior? Wow. I’m afraid we won’t be having any of those classes together. C’mon, I’ll show you your locker.”

All my anxiety over what to say and how to say it disappears. Leela talks enough for both of us. Her words gush forth in a steady stream of chatter as we pass several clusters of students. So far, hardly any of them have noticed the new girl. They’re all too busy jabbering about the “big game”. I hear the phrase tossed around several times.

As soon as my bag and supplies are tucked away in my new locker, Leela leads me to our first class, which coincidentally, happens to be the same as it was in Jude—Current Events. As we walk, Leela tells me about her family. She has five siblings. She quickly adds that she’s Irish Catholic, as if this ought to explain everything. I’m surprised she admits to it so openly.

“Do you go to church?” I ask.

People are allowed to believe whatever they want in the privacy of their homes. It’s their prerogative and hey, if they want to put their hope in something that isn’t true, then go right ahead. But churches have become a thing of the past, replaced by pharmacies and gas stations and liquor stores. The few that still exist are in serious disrepair. Why go when the object of worship has been reduced to another Santa Claus?

“No, there aren’t any in Thornsdale. But my parents make us do our rosary before bed, even though I’m pretty sure they’re closet atheists. It’s more ritual than anything else. They do it because that’s how they were raised.”

I nod, drumming up images of religious folk standing on street corners, holding signs that say things like
Repent Now
and
The End Times are Here
and
Do You Want to be Raptured?
I had to look that last one up on the internet. I wonder if Leela thinks we’re living in the end times. I wonder if she thinks the escalating crime and the influx of natural disasters are proof of our world’s imminent demise. But I don’t have the guts to ask.

“Mr. Lotsam teaches this class and let me tell you, he’s crazy about the news. He gets this fire in his eyes, like it’s the most important subject on the face of the planet, and sometimes he spits.”

“Spits?”

“Only when he’s really, really excited. He’ll also be your history teacher. He never spits in history, but he does cuss.”

“Cuss?” Teachers never ever cussed at Jude.

Leela bobs her head as we step inside Mr. Lotsam’s class. Instead of desks, there are six tables arranged in the shape of a horseshoe. Leela leads me to one on the end. I sit down and watch as students file inside the classroom. I’m the only person not wearing red or gray.

When the bell rings, one last straggler slips inside and takes the seat to my right, bringing the subtle scent of fabric softener and a hint of wintergreen. I look over and my breath quickens. The straggler is a boy. Unlike his classmates, he wears a plain white t-shirt that shows off tanned, wiry arms and a frayed hemp bracelet tied around his wrist with three different colored stones—red, black, and green. His fingers are long and masculine, with worn nubs for nails. He has a straight nose and olive skin and unruly dark hair and the kind of build that reminds me of a mountain climber. Like his muscles come from practical use rather than pumping iron in a weight room.

Leela bumps my knee with hers and I peel my attention away, relieved to see I’m not the only girl staring.

The teacher—cussing, spitting Mr. Lotsam—stands from behind his desk with a gray soul patch and of all things, a thin ponytail. He wears a red button-down shirt and a gray tie and penny loafers.

I peek again at the boy next to me. He has a faded hunter green school bag strapped over the back of his chair and a notebook in front of him on the table. He rests his chin in his hand and twirls a pen around the tip of his thumb as a girl with long caramel hair and full, glossy lips flirtatiously nudges him with her shoulder.

Mr. Lotsam spreads his arms in front of the class. “I hear,” he says, “that we have a new student in our midst.”

Heat rushes up my neck. I want to duck under the table, but I force myself to sit still, to act like I’m not about to pee my pants in front of everyone on my first day. Especially not in front of this boy, whose stare warms the side of my face.

“Leela, do you care to introduce us?”

Leela stands. “Everybody, this is Tess Eckhart. She just moved here from Florida. Tess, this is everybody.”

I give a feeble wave, hoping with every fiber of hope in my body that Mr. Lotsam will not ask me to stand up and talk about myself.

“A pleasure to meet you, young Tess. I’m confident that all here will give you a warm welcome.” He claps his hands and almost everyone swivels around in their seats. A few ogle a little longer, curious. I can see it in their eyes—the boys trying to figure out if I’m dating material, the girls trying to figure out if I’m a threat. I want to tell the girls not to worry and the boys not to bother, but it doesn’t take long for their curiosity to wane without any help from me. “Since our classes are cut short today because of the pep rally—” the class hoots and hollers, “—how about we jump right in?”

The hooting and hollering turns into a groan, followed by rustling papers as notebooks open to fresh pages. Mr. Lotsam jots the words
Presidential Election
on the white board and the three candidates. This is the first time an independent has a legitimate shot at winning office and nobody can stop talking about it. I try to focus, but the side of my face remains warm. I swear the boy next to me is staring, but when I gather enough courage to peek through my hair, his attention is on Mr. Lotsam. The pouty-lipped girl beside him catches me checking him out and gives me the stink eye.

I quickly turn away and as I do, my elbow knocks into my pencil. The boy beside me goes from sitting like a statue to lightning quick, as if he had measured the proximity between my arm and the writing utensil and was waiting for the collision. Before I can react, he snags it up and hands it over.

Whoa
.

His eyes.

They are the color of spring grass, fringed with the kind of eyelashes most girls would kill for. Or at the very least, pay money for. He stares at me as if I’m somehow familiar, and for the span of a millisecond, something like disbelief flickers in the grass green of his irises. He cocks his head slightly, a small furrow divoting his brow.

“Th-thanks,” I stammer.

He gives me a slow nod before the girl on his other side jots something on his notebook. He shifts away, his mouth turning up at the corner, and writes something back. It doesn’t seem possible, but even the way he moves his pencil is enticing. I find myself wishing his notes were to me, or that I could at least read them. The girl keeps the string of back-and-forth writing exchanges going until the bell rings. Then she strikes up a conversation and they walk out into the hallway together. I stare after him. I really can’t seem to help myself.

Leela gives me a nudge with her elbow. “You’ve been Luka-ed.”

“What?”

“It’s a term some of the senior girls made up. His name’s Luka Williams.” Leela fans her cheeks. “A gorgeous specimen, isn’t he?”

Understatement of the year.

“He moved to Thornsdale at the beginning of freshman year. All the girls are in love with him. All the guys want to be him. Even the jealous jocks.”

We filter out of the class with the rest of the students. “Jealous?”

“Luka can run circles around them and their varsity letter jackets.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s the best athlete in school. He can throw a football way farther than Matt Chesterson. You should see him in gym class.”

“Who’s Matt Chesterson?”

“Our annoyingly arrogant quarterback. Which is so beyond ironic, seeing as our team didn’t win a single game last year.”

We turn a corner and Leela takes a drink from the drinking fountain. “We have Ceramics next. Guess who else is in the class?” She wipes the moisture from her bottom lip and gives me another friendly nudge. “His initials are L.W.”

I ignore the jab, and the giddiness expanding inside my chest. It’s a silly feeling. If ever a boy was out of my league, it’s this one. “Why isn’t he on the team?”

“His mom is one of those super overprotective types. He’s an only child. Nobody really knows what his dad does for a living, except it must be something important because they are loaded. And I mean,
loaded
. They live in Forest Grove, which, if you haven’t heard about already, you will soon enough. It’s a gated community. I’m not even kidding.”

The heat in my ears creeps into my cheeks.

“You’ve already heard of it?”

I shrug.

She blinks. “Do you
live
there?”

“My dad works for Safe Guard.”

Her eyebrows inch up her forehead. “As in Safe Guard Security Systems?”

I nod.

“Wow.”

Yeah. Wow. I don’t bother to tell her he stands on one of the top rungs of that particular corporate ladder.

There’s a stretch of awkward silence, where we are walking side by side, but I don’t know what to say. I hope my living in Forest Grove doesn’t make Leela think differently about me. I can’t imagine she has anything against rich people, considering all those cars in the parking lot. I think I saw a Lamborghini. We may live in Forest Grove, but my parents would never be that pretentious.

“I’d love to see what it looks like in there,” she finally says.

I jump on the words. “You can come over if you want. After school.”

“I’d love to!” She smiles big and waves me along. I follow her into a stairwell, down a flight of steps into the basement, past floor-to-ceiling windows which reveal an indoor swimming pool, and inside our second classroom. This room is bigger, with dusty, laminate flooring, a hodge-podge of tables, and several pottery wheels. It smells like must and chlorine. “Hey, maybe we can go to the game together. We’ll probably get demolished, but you’ll never find a student body with more school spirit.”

Football games. I hate—no, I
loathe
football games.

“Come on, it’ll be fun,” Leela urges.

I can hear my mother’s voice asking the question.
How will you ever fit in if you spend all your time hiding in your room, Tess?
I take a deep breath. “Sure. That’d be nice.”

It doesn’t seem possible, but Leela’s smile grows bigger and I decide I really like this girl. We toss our bags on an unoccupied table. “So, how old is your brother?” she asks.

“He’ll be sixteen next month.”

She looks like she wants to ask more, but pinches her lips together instead. It’s not until I’m working the bubbles out of a hunk of clay that I see him, dodging bits of eraser playfully tossed his way by a pretty blonde. Then, for no reason at all, his attention flits to me, so suddenly I’m caught off guard. For the briefest of moments, we look at one another—his stare open and curious, mine startled, until I come to my senses and drop my gaze, beyond embarrassed to be caught gawking. For the rest of class, I keep my eyes down on my project, attempting to regulate my heart rate. I don’t dare peek at him again.

Do You See What I See?

I
have six more classes after Ceramics—Trigonometry, Physics, Study Hall, Honors English, and World History. Lunch comes in the middle and I’m beyond grateful to have it with Leela. Pete, too, although he chooses not to sit with us. I feel guilty. I hate that I’ve made my brother’s life miserable. But then I spot Luka at the table next to Pete’s, and I’m easily distracted.

He sits with a mixture of girls and boys. Miss Pouty Lips from Current Events and the clay-throwing girl from ceramics, a bulky boy with a very square head and a few others.

“You’re staring again.”

I quickly look away.

Leela smiles and cracks open her Coke. “Don’t worry. It just means you’re human. And female.” Her attention wanders to my brother, who sits with Scott. The kid’s ears are still pink. Poor Mr. Shroud seems to suffer from the same blushing problem as me.

I open my chocolate milk. “Who are the girls sitting next to him?”

“The short-haired blond from ceramics is Jennalee Fisher. The girl from Current Events is Summer Burbanks.” Leela takes a bite of a French fry. “They pretend to be friends, but they secretly hate each other.”