Zombie Blondes (7 page)

No wonder I’m always the outcast. I live in a house where we can’t even answer the phone!

I don’t listen as he calls for me to come back. I head right to my room and close the door. I’m not in the mood to hear his explanations. I don’t need to listen to his speech about how everything will be just fine one day. I already have it memorized.

Lying on my bed, I stare out the window and try to think of something else. Anything else. And the blue sky brings me back to them. The clear eyes of the girls everybody in Maplecrest loves. And maybe it’s not such a bad idea after all to be like them. Maybe becoming a clone of Maggie Turner wouldn’t be as horrible as it sounded on my first day of school. At least being somebody else for a while would take my mind off of being me. It would get Morgan off my case, too. And to tell the truth, I wouldn’t mind being adored for once in my life.

I know it’s probably crazy, but it’s pretty to think of, in that way.

“ You’re going to what?” Lukas says over the steady chatter of
the lunchroom. Pushing his chair away and letting his fists fall on the table. Two girls at the next table stop eating. They stare at us for a second trying to figure out who’s shouting. Turn around again when they see us because we’re not important enough for them to care.

“You’re making a scene,” I whisper.

“Sorry,” he says sarcastically. “I wouldn’t want to embarrass you in front of your new friends.” Still speaking loud enough to make the next table glance over. Trying to say it loud enough to get Maggie and her group to look over from their table but it’s too far away for his voice to travel. Too much static between here and there.

“Don’t be a jerk,” I say seriously enough to let him know I’m only half kidding.

“I’m being a jerk?” he asks. An honest show of confusion on his face when he raises his eyebrows and lets his shaggy hair fall in front of his eyes. Then he gathers himself. Takes a deep breath and takes my wrists in his hands. I look down real quick, surprised by how warm his skin feels. Surprised by how familiar it feels. “Hannah, listen to yourself. I’m being a jerk? They wrote
SLUTS NOT WELCOME
on your locker last Friday, remember?” he says, nodding over to the table of power that rules our little high school society.

I pull my hands away violently.

“I don’t need you to remind me,” I say. “I still see it every time I need a book. Besides, it wasn’t all of them. It was just Morgan.”

“Oh, that makes a difference,” he says.

“It does,” I snap at him.

“I can’t believe you’re talking about trying out for the cheerleading squad. It’s enemy territory,” he says, throwing his arms up in the air as if he’s proven his point.

I don’t say anything.

The truth is, I’m not sure he isn’t right about it. Maybe it is a crazy idea. Maybe he’s right to talk me out of it. I know he’s just trying to look out for me. Doesn’t want to see me get my feelings hurt. But I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the way the girls looked ever since we saw them at the game two days ago. The way the crowd couldn’t take their eyes away for fear they might miss even a second of the routine. And I guess I just want that, too. Want people to look at me that way. Even if it’s only in this lost little town in the middle of nowhere. Even if it’s just once.

Lukas brushes the hair away from his face. Pulls his chair
closer to me. His brown eyes look safe against the red and black walls in the background. “Don’t you see? That’s what they do,” he says in a quieter voice. A friendlier one. “They make it so girls want to become one of them. Then once you do, that’s it. You’re not Hannah anymore. You’re Mara. Or Monica. Or whatever name she gives you.”

“I just want to try out, not become someone else,” I tell him. Sort of telling myself at the same time because I’d be lying if it didn’t cross my mind.

“That’s what Alison said,” he says. His eyes go someplace far away. Looking over the heads of all the seated people in the room. Staring like if he stares long enough, hard enough, he’ll be able to see into the past.

“Who’s Alison?” I ask.

Lukas shakes off the memories that are like movie images playing against the back of his eyelids. “Alison is Morgan,” he says. “She used to be a good friend of mine. Now she doesn’t even remember who I am.”

“Morgan?” I say, surprised that he’d ever be friends with such a superior bitch. “You’re better off.”

“But that’s what I’m trying to tell you, she didn’t used to be like that,” he says. Raising his voice again the way my dad does when he’s lost patience with me. I’m about to tell him he’s leaning toward being a jerk again when he says he’s sorry. Lowers his voice. “It’s just . . . I get upset when I think about it . . . like I should’ve stopped her or something.”

“Look, it’s no big deal. It’s just something to do,” I say. Trying to comfort him. To assure him that the same thing won’t happen with me. I didn’t mean to upset him. I mean,
I guess I knew he wouldn’t be happy about it, but I didn’t think he’d get all freaked out about it. “Besides, don’t you watch the news? Self-esteem is very important for a girl my age. It could mean the difference between being president and being a prostitute,” trying to make a joke out of the whole thing so that he sees I’m not too serious about it.

“I knew this would happen,” he says. “I knew it as soon as I saw you the first time. That’s why I came over in the first place. To warn you off.”

“Don’t you think you’re overreacting?” I say. “I mean, they’re cheerleaders, not terrorists.”

“You don’t get it,” he says. “They’re already dead. They only walk and breathe because they feed off the living.”

“Not this again!” It’s my turn to raise my voice. “I’ve had it with all this crap. You need to come back to the real world,” I tell him. Because I’m beginning to think he’s the one who needs to be saved.

“Hannah, why do you think there’re so many empty houses in this town? Why do you think the whole school is terrified of them? It’s not just because they’re popular and mean. It’s because they kill people. Kill them and use their blood to keep their corpses from rotting!” He’s talking so fast and so whispered that his face gets flushed.

“Yeah? Then how come they don’t kill you? If you know so much, wouldn’t they want to?” I ask.

“Everybody knows! Don’t you get it?” he growls, trying to keep his voice from being heard but also trying to sound fierce. “Only nobody talks about it. Not even me . . . not to anybody but you.”

“Oh, lucky me,” I say sarcastically and shuffle my books
and chair to inch away from him.

Lukas moves his chair, too. Moves closer. Cupping his hand around my ear and whispering so that his words are warm and wet. “They’re going to make you like that,” he says. “They’re going to make it so you have to kill, too.”

I push him away and put my hands up to my ears to let him know how ridiculous he sounds. His eyes are crazy. Eyes like angry dogs barking behind fences to keep people out. Eyes like the kind of people he’s trying to warn me against.

He reaches over and pulls my hand away.

I’m no longer playing when I struggle free. “Get off of me!” I tell him.

“Look at them!” he says, keeping his fingers wrapped around my wrist as I try to pull away. “Look in their eyes. They’re not like us.”

“You’re crazy,” I tell him once I finally peel his hands off my arm. Little white marks still there to outline where he held on. “Nobody’s killing anybody! This town’s empty because it sucks. There’s nothing to do and no place to work. That’s why people move, not because they’re being stalked by imaginary creatures. And that’s why I’m going to try out . . . because I’m bored!”

All the faces at the tables on both sides are turned to face us when I’m done shouting. The teacher’s aide assigned to the lunchroom is staring at us from across the room. Watching as I rub my arm and wondering if she needs to get involved. I hear the girls next to me whispering. “Jesus! He’s such a freak,” they say. Lukas hears them, too, but doesn’t let it break his concentration. Doesn’t take his eyes from mine.
Stares so intensely that it scares me.

I’m not sure what to do as I see the corners of his eyes get bloodshot. See them blur up and I know I’ve hurt him pretty bad. I didn’t mean to. Not after he’s been the only person nice enough to get to know me. But there’s a reason no one talks to him. Maybe he really is a freak. I didn’t think so, but I’m starting to wonder because I know now that he honestly believes what he’s telling me.

“Forget it,” he says. “All of it, it doesn’t matter. Try out and have fun. I hope you make it. At least then I’ll never have to see you again.”

He grabs his backpack off the floor and stands up.

“Lukas! Wait!” I plead.

But he doesn’t stop and I watch him fade into the crowd. Watch my only friend in Maplecrest disappear from my life. I fold my arms on the table and hide my head in the crease of my elbow, wondering why every boy I ever meet turns out to be a creep.

I won’t let him change my mind, though. I’m going to see the cheerleading coach as soon as lunch is over. It’s the only way I’ll ever be able to make any sane friends here.

I’ll show him, too. I won’t change even if I do make the squad. Maybe then he’ll realize how insane he’s being.

Have you ever
cheered before?” Mrs. Donner asks me as I stand in front of her desk, shuffling my feet and looking for the proper place to put my hands. I stick them in my pockets but they feel uncomfortably tight and so I pull them out again. Hide them behind my back and twist the
fingers of my left hand with the fingers of my right hand the same way my dad showed me to do with paper before making a fire in the fireplace and give myself small Indian burns as I think about the question of having ever cheered before.

“Not exactly,” is the answer I settle on.

Mrs. Donner lets her glasses slide down to the end of her nose and looks at me from above the lenses. Her eyes are like blue sparks of electricity bursting under an icy surface. If it wasn’t for their sharp color, there would be nothing about this lady that would connect her to the girls she coaches on the cheerleading squad. She has none of their perfection. Her face is lined with age and her skin has taken on the gray color of ashes that old people often get. Her dress is drab and shapeless and makes her look like a giant hen sitting on her roost. But the eyes are the same and I wonder if she was pale and thin and beautiful once, too.

“You know we have a very high standard,” she tells me in a flat tone.

I nod. Thinking about my own beauty and wondering if she’s saying that as a way of letting me know I’m also far from being flawless.

She covers her mouth with the palm of her hand and taps her fingers against her cheek. The glare of the sun catches her glasses and erases her eyes. Two blank circles stare at me and I start to feel self-conscious as she tilts her head to one side and then the other trying to get a good look at every part of me. Then she asks me again if I’ve ever had any experience.

I bite my lip and consider lying to her and telling her that
I used to cheer. It wouldn’t be a complete lie. I used to cheer when I was seven years old. I’d twirl around and wave my pom-poms out of rhythm to the chant and pretend I was a ballerina when my skirt lifted into the air. But I know that’s not what she means and she’d be able to see through it. Her eyes are the kind that can pull the truth out like a magnet. So I keep my response vague like before.

“Sort of,” I say, putting my hands back in my pockets.

A skeptical look transforms her face and I can tell right away it’s not going to be enough.

“Well, I did do gymnastics for two years,” saying it a little too quickly, a little too eagerly. It’s the truth, though. I just leave out the part about it having been over a year since I’ve practiced anything.

“Gymnastics?” Mrs. Donner says and smiles patiently the way people do when they’re listening to little kids tell a story that doesn’t make any sense.

“I know it’s not the same thing,” I admit, “but some of it is. I can learn the rest of it if you give me the chance.” The chance is all I want. All I’m asking for and nothing more. One try to show everyone I’m not what I’ve been made out to be through whispers slipping off slithering tongues.

The tap-tapping of her fingers drumming against her chin starts over again and I start to sway at the hips. I can hear voices drifting in from the hallway as the minute hand ticks closer to class time. My stomach begins to turn over and over as Mrs. Donner considers me. Taking my hand from my pocket, I start to bite my nails. She catches me and gives a stern look. The kind of look teachers give to address any bad habit and I take my hand away from my mouth. It’s
clear that nail biting certainly doesn’t go along with her high standard.

Mrs. Donner seems happy that I’ve caught on so quickly. She smiles and the wrinkles disappear to wipe the age away from her face. “Okay, let’s see what you can do,” she finally says and I feel the knots inside me begin to loosen.

“Thank you!” I shout, bringing my hands together as if saying a prayer. My heart races inside me like a bird beating its wings against the bars of a cage and I can’t stop smiling. “I won’t let you down,” I promise her and she nods to show she doesn’t expect me to.

“See you after school, then,” she says with a reminder of where and when I’m supposed to report to face my fate. I nod and hurry past the kids who are filing into the room. Wave once over my shoulder as my reflection grows smaller in the glare of her eyeglasses.

The hall is a dizzy maze of backpacks and blue jeans and colored lockers and dust specks that catch in the sunlight. Same as it was this morning, but somehow it looks different. Brighter. And the faces going by don’t look nearly as threatening because already something has changed. Already I’m starting over and this time whatever I become here it will be because of things I choose to do instead of stories made up about me.

I’m so lost in my thoughts that I don’t notice the person hurrying behind me. Not until she grabs the strap of my backpack. The surprise of it makes me gasp and stumble until I see it’s only Diana.