Uncanny Day (10 page)

“You're in love with me.” You would have thought I did late-night stand-up on the weekends after Kate's boisterous laugh at the statement. Then I followed with, “Ever since the fifth grade.” Kate quieted her giggling like an engine being keyed off. Something in the comic store clicked and then she gave me her stink eye.

“I'm telling you the truth, promise,” I said, holding up three fingers in a Boy Scout salute. Not that I was in the Boy Scouts. Kate didn't think it was cute. She flipped me just one finger and stood, turning her back to me. Her whole body seemed to change character. I'd hit something sensitive, which was rare with Kate. She always acted so strong and bold; maybe she was starting to believe me.

“You're just making that up,” she finally said. “We've known each other for a long time.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. I needed to heat things up. “Okay, how about the movie
All the Pretty Horses
?”

She shrugged her shoulders and leafed through some papers on the table as if my comment didn't even make a dent.

“That was a lucky shot in the dark. So I'm a Matt Damon fan—it still doesn't prove anything.” She was talking faster now. She moved to a computer station, sifting through some more papers there, but she dropped them.

I began to wonder if or when she was ever going to tell me that she liked me or loved me. I couldn't be fully certain which; experience told me the tiny pink heart could symbolize either/or.

Was this what it felt like when you were struck with knowledge that maybe you weren't supposed to know? Basically, something I dished to people almost every day while reading minds for my business?

“All right, fine,” she said. I had my eyes on the floor, thinking, but I looked up at Kate as she started to pace, her arms crossed over her chest. “Let's say you're right, I do like you. It doesn't prove that you can read minds.”

I waited a moment to speak my next piece of evidence. Her floundering was kind of cute.

“I can tell you about
The Edge Hemisphere
,” I said.

Kate stopped pacing. Her eyes grew huge, and she walked straight up to me. I stood, holding my ground to meet her. It was perfect freckle-viewing height.

“Okay, Nolan, that isn't funny. How do you know about that? Did you hack my laptop or something?”

I tapped her forehead with my finger. She blinked and looked like she wanted to punch me.

“Kate, I'm telling you the truth,” I returned.

Her expression dropped to seriousness. She slowly shook her head and brought her hand to her mouth. “No way.”

I imagined her ticker of inner thought flying at quantum speeds.

“So, you can just…what, ready anybody's mind?”

I answered with a half-smile.

“Okay then, read Principal Muller's mind and tell me if he's looking to retire,” she said instantly.

I let the grin go. “It's not like that.” I took a deep breath. “I have to look into the person's eyes, like I did yours.”

Motioning for her to take a seat again, I began to describe to Kate the process of my power, mostly the technical stuff. I told her how each person has a mind room and how each one is different, how it only takes seconds, and then finished with how I felt responsible for Stephanie's death.

“Oh, Nolan, I'm so sorry,” she said, placing her hand on mine. She quickly removed it as her face transformed into that Muddy-Huddy-idea expression. She went on. “I'm blown away—this is freaking awesome. Do you know how much I could…I mean, we could use this to our advantage?”

It was my turn to laugh, and I did, but then the grave realization dawned that I had left out a crucial piece of information when explaining everything to Kate. I watched her ponder the unlimited possibilities she now knew were at her disposal. She was cute that way.

I broke into her train of inner thought (ha, no, not literally). I wanted to relay certain conditions now that she knew my secret.

“Listen, Kate, there are a few things.” This time I took her hands in mine. “First of all, you can't tell anybody about this.” She looked at me, still in her freak-out mode.

“Kate, hey! Snap out of it. Seriously, you can't tell anyone,” I repeated.

“Yeah—okay—right.” Her words were like short bursts of machine-gun fire, her attention distant. I leaned into her field of vision.

“You can't write anything about me. No fictional stories, no character studies, blogs, interviews, or exposés.” She kept her hands in mine, keen on my words. I sighed and bowed my head.

“And there is one more thing, something new.” Her excitement level rose even more now. “Inside Stephanie's mind, when I read it for the last time…” I took a swallow. “There was something in there with me.”

Kate shrugged her shoulders, unimpressed. “Like?”

I tried to explain as best I could. “No, I mean something wasn't right. Every mind I've read, I've always been alone in the room. Last night, something that looked like Stephanie was in there with me. But it wasn't her. This thing was something else.”

Kate wore probably the most excited-slash-scared face I'd ever seen. That wasn't good, but at least she believed me.

I finished, saying, “That's why I need your help—to find out what it was.”

The period bell rang.

Chapter Twenty-four

I HAD SORT OF forgotten where I was. Explaining everything to Kate and realizing she had a crush on me was an overload. That, or I desperately needed something to eat. I'd skipped lunch, and it was coming back to get me. Back at my locker, I nabbed a half-eaten bag of Doritos and poured the rest of the contents into my mouth. Wiping the crumbs from my face, I moved down the hall to my next class.

My past day-and-a-half's existence had been so disjointed and shaken up, I don't think even Google knew what was going on. I had so many questions and not one of them had been answered. For example, the most outstanding one: why Greg lies.

I turned the corner into my classroom, found my seat, and planted my butt. I was glad that at least this class period would be a breeze.

Mr. Carlson's speech class was always pretty easy—well, for me. Others loathed it. The best part about speech class was that once you gave your speech, all you had to do was sit and listen to the others. (Hint to those who haven't taken speech yet: go first. Not only does it show initiative, but the rest of your week is set, and you can glide through the next couple of days.)

Earlier that week, the class had been given the assignment to talk on a topic we knew nothing about. As Mr. Carlson put it, the weirder, the better. “Something that really would get the entire class to stay awake,” he jokingly explained.

Deep down, I wanted so bad to explain my secret power to everyone. Just dazzle them all with the ins and outs of the human mind—along with embarrassing as many people as possible, of course. Don't tell me that wouldn't have been an A+ speech!

Obviously I couldn't make that my topic, so instead I had done a speech on the human eye. Heck, I looked into that all the time—why not do a little research on how they worked? Not only did I speak on eyes in general, but I did tangent stuff like the blind, color displacement, and double vision. Probably not the most interesting subject, but it earned me a B-, so I was cool with that.

The late bell rang. Hunkered down in the back of the room at his desk, Mr. Carlson was engrossed in a magazine article of some kind. He positioned his desk in the back of the classroom to observe us better, keep us on our toes, and it worked—you really couldn't get away with anything.

Mr. Carlson was a short guy with a baldish head and salt-and-pepper beard to offset the lack on top. He was maybe mid-sixties and unmarried. I guess he was in love with teaching instead. Poor guy. A good teacher, nonetheless.

That day he was rocking the light-green sweater vest over a white button-down shirt, and around his neck was a dark purple tie. That guy had to have been a hippie in his day.

The classroom was starting to quiet down after the bell, and finally Mr. Carlson took to his feet. “Okay, who do we have left today?” he asked.

A few hands were raised, and I noticed in particular that Laura Hartman's thin, perfectly tanned right arm floated into the air. An idea caught me. During her speech would be a perfect time to read her mind. That is, if she made eye contact with the class. For being the most popular girl in school, Laura couldn't give a speech worth a drop of rain in the desert. She always locked her eyes on her notecards and read about a hundred miles an hour in the highest Mickey Mouse voice possible. Trying to meet eyes with her would be difficult, but it was worth a shot.

Mr. Carlson clasped his hands together. “All right, Zack, why don't you go?” I saw Laura blow out a relieved breath of air. I wasn't worried; every speech was only three to four minutes long, so we would get to her eventually.

Zack Zigler—that was way too many Z's, in my opinion—moved to the front, but I didn't watch him. My gaze had come upon an empty desk midway across the room. Stephanie's desk. It hit me that she would never return to school, but what was I thinking? The poor girl was dead, but by what cause? Was it from her injuries sustained in the car accident, or was it that thing inside her mind?

A chill ran down my back as Zack wrapped up his speech on the evolution of skateboarding. While he may have piqued the interest of a few people in class, it sounded like Zack was just talking about a hobby of his. My thoughts still swirled around Stephanie.

Again Mr. Carlson called on those who hadn't read their last will and testament to the class to raise their hands. Laura lifted her arm slightly, probably hoping to secure another escape.

“Laura Hartman,” he said, marking down something in a notebook. “Oh, and let's see some eye contact this time, like the rest of us in here exist.”

Thank you, Mr. Carlson!
A few giggles spread about the room. Laura retrieved her trusty notecards, her one saving grace in this horrific ordeal, and walked as though she were being led to the firing squad.

She took a deep breath, gave us her cute smile, and began. It sounded like her words were in the Running of the Bulls, as if the faster she talked, the farther she'd be from certain, crushing doom. Then I saw her eyes flutter sideways. I looked in the direction of her quick glance, but it was only to the door that exited to the hallway. I bet that was where she would have liked to be instead.

Come on, I begged, look at me, or at least look up for a second.
I figured Mr. Carlson's eyes had a hard enough fix on her already, waiting to see if she would relieve her notecards of all the attention. Laura just couldn't seem to do it.

Then I saw it. Laura's eyes flipped up a second time, but this was to look at the teacher, give him what he wanted. How long had it been since she started? Laura was reading so fast, I thought for sure that famous Disney mouse had visited to tell us all about how sea turtles laid eggs on the beach.

Laura was beginning the conclusion of her speech, and she hadn't glanced from her notecards but twice. I was going to miss my opportunity. She finished, and the class clapped. I didn't join them. I was too busy keeping my eyes set on her. Then, as she walked from the front of class back to her seat, she did it. Laura sat in the third row and she would have to pass me to get to her desk. At first her eyes were cast down, but in one mere moment, she shot me a dead-on look. I caught it and was in.

The familiar drilling sound of washing machines and dryers filled my ears. It was very loud, very annoying. Nothing had quieted down in here since the last time I read Laura's mind; if anything, it had grown louder.

Although, something
was
different this time. Sometimes I'd revisit minds and the room would be shifted slightly. Nothing major, but it was as if the person rearranged his or her thoughts. I guess it was normal—who didn't keep their mind orderly? The deranged and homicidal, maybe, but for the most part, people were pretty level-headed.

One difference I noticed instantly was the sudden drop in temperature. Not freezing, but there was a distinct change from the last time.

I walked the row of washing machines, trying to pick up any clues to a connection Laura had with Greg. Then an idea struck me and I turned my attention to the dryers, although this time they were all in full motion, working away, even the one that had stopped before.

I shifted my focus to the washing machines; nothing seemed out of place. Then Laura's current string of thought started ringing. I debated answering it. The phone's ring grew louder, as if it were vying for my attention. It sounded more like a fire alarm.

I moved, giving in, and unhooked it mid-ring, putting the white receiver to my ear. By instinct I almost said hello.

On the other line was Laura's voice. She was going on about sea turtles still… Wait, no, not sea turtles, but the speech, and how she was “frickin'” glad to be done with it.

“Screw eye contact,” she said before changing the subject to something else. I hung up the phone, and not two seconds passed before it was ringing again. Standing so close to it, I felt my skull shake. I lifted it again but then let it dangle by its cord. It just occurred to me, strangely enough, that the phone wasn't a cell phone. Who had a landline anymore?