Cynthia Hand - Unearthly

It’s definitely going to take some getting used to.

I thought the other students would be excited to see me, or curious at the very least.

I’m fresh meat, after all, and from California, and maybe I have some big-city wisdom to offer the natives. Wrong again. For the most part, they completely ignore me. After I make it through three periods (trigonometry, French III, College Prep Chemistry) where nobody even bothers with a simple howdy, I’m ready to dash for my car and drive straight back to California, where I’ve known everybody for forever and they’ve known me, where right this minute my friends and I would be dishing about our holidays and comparing schedules, and I’d be pretty and popular. Where life is ordinary.

But then I see him.

He’s standing with his back to me near my locker. A surge of electricity zings through me as I recognize his shoulders, his hair, the shape of his head. In a flash I’m in the vision, seeing him both in the black fleece jacket among the trees and for real, just down the hall simultaneously, like the vision is a thin veil laid on top of reality.

I take a step toward him, my mouth opening to call his name. Then I remember that I don’t know it. Like always, it’s as if he hears me anyway and starts to turn, and my heart skips a beat when I don’t wake up but see his face now, his mouth curling up in a half smile as he jokes with the guy next to him.

He glances up and his eyes meet mine. The hallway melts away. It’s only him and me now, in the forest. The vision comes from behind him, the fire on the hillside roaring toward us, faster than it could ever possibly happen.

I have to save him, I think.

That’s when I faint.

I wake to a girl with long, golden brown hair sitting on the floor next to me, her hand on my forehead, talking in a low voice like she’s trying to calm an animal.

“What happened?” I look around for the boy, but he’s gone. Something hard pokes into my back, and I realize I’m lying on my chemistry book.

“You fell,” says the girl, as if that isn’t obvious. “Do you have epilepsy or something?

It looked like you were having some kind of seizure.”

People are staring. I feel the heat rising in my cheeks.

“I’m okay,” I say, sitting up.

“Easy.” The girl jumps up and reaches down to help me. I take her hand and let her haul me to my feet.

“I’m kind of a klutz,” I say, like that explains it.

“She’s okay. Go to class,” the girl says to the kids who are still gawking. “Did you eat this morning?” she asks me.

“What?”

“Could be a blood sugar thing.” She puts her arm around me and steers me down the hallway. “What’s your name?”

“Clara.”

“Wendy,” she says in response.

“Where are we going?”

“The nurse.”

“No,” I object, breaking free of her arm. I straighten and attempt to smile. “I’m fine, really.”

The bell rings. Suddenly the hallway’s deserted. Then from around the corner bustles a plump, yellow-haired woman wearing blue nursing scrubs, walking fast.

Behind her is the boy. My boy.

“There she goes again,” Wendy says as I wobble into her.

“Christian,” orders the nurse quickly as they rush toward me.

Christian. His name.

His arm comes under my knees, and he lifts me. My arm is around his shoulder, my fingers inches away from the spot where his neck meets his hair. His smell, a mixture of Ivory soap and some wonderful, spicy cologne, washes over me. I look up into his green eyes, so close that I can see flecks of gold in them.

“Hi,” he says.

Heaven help me, I think as he smiles. It’s just too much.

“Hi,” I murmur, looking away, flushing to the roots of my loose, very-orange hair.

“Hold on to me,” he says, and then he’s carrying me down the hall. Over his shoulder I see Wendy watching me, before she turns and walks the other way.

When we reach the nurse’s office he puts me down gently onto a cot. I do my best not to gape at him.

“Thank you,” I stammer.

“No problem.” He smiles again in a way that makes me glad I’m sitting down. “You’re pretty light.”

My jumbled brain tries to make sense of these three words and put them in order, with little success.

“Thank you,” I say again, lamely.

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Prescott,” says the nurse. “Now get to class.”

Christian Prescott. His name is Christian Prescott.

“See ya,” he says, and just like that, he’s walking away.

I wave as he rounds the corner, then feel like an idiot.

“Now,” says the nurse, turning to me.

“Really,” I say. “I’m fine.”

She looks unconvinced.

“I could do jumping jacks — that’s how fine I am,” I say, and I can’t wipe the stupid smile off my face.

Thus I arrive at Honors English late. The students have pulled their chairs into a circle. The teacher, an older man with a short, white beard, motions for me to come in.

“Pull up a chair. Miss Gardner, I presume?”

“Yes.” I feel the whole class staring directly at me as I grab a desk from the back of the room and drag it toward the circle. I recognize Wendy, the girl who helped me in the hall. She scoots her desk over to make room for me.

“I’m Mr. Phibbs,” says the teacher. “We’re in the middle of an exercise that’s largely for your benefit, so I’m glad you could join us. Everyone must give three unique facts about themselves. If anyone else in the circle has one in common, they raise their hand, and the person whose turn it is has to choose something else. We’re currently on Shawn, who was finishing up by claiming that he has the most. rocking snowboard in Teton County. ” Mr. Phibbs raises his bushy eyebrows. “Which Jason here contested.”

“I ride the beautiful pink lady,” brags the boy who I assume is Shawn.

“No one can argue that’s unique,” says Mr. Phibbs with a cough. “So now we’re on to Kay. And say your name, please, for the new girl.”

Everyone looks to a petite brunette with large brown eyes. She smiles as if it’s the most natural thing in the world for her to be the center of attention.

“I’m Kay Patterson,” she says. “My parents own the oldest fudge shop in Jackson.”

“I’ve met Harrison Ford lots of times,” she adds as her second thing, “because our fudge is his favorite. He said that I look like Carrie Fisher from Star Wars .”

So she’s vain, I think. Although if you dressed her up in a white gown and put the cinnamon-roll buns on either side of her head, she really could pass for Princess Leia. She’s very attractive, definitely one of the pretty people, with a peaches-and-cream complexion and brown hair that falls past her shoulders in perfect curls, so shiny that it almost doesn’t look like hair.

“And,” Kay adds as her final touch, “Christian Prescott is my boyfriend.”

I dislike her already.

“Very good, Kay,” said Mr. Phibbs.

Next is Wendy. She’s blushing, obviously mortified to be speaking in front of the entire class about herself.

“I’m Wendy Avery,” she says with a shrug. “My family manages a ranch outside Wilson. I don’t know what else is that unique about me. I want to be a veterinarian, not a big surprise because I love horses. And I’ve made my own clothes since I was six years old.”

“Thank you, Wendy,” said Mr. Phibbs. She rocks back with a small sigh of relief.

From the desk next to hers, Kay stifles a yawn. It’s a small, ladylike gesture, but it makes me dislike her even more.

Silence.

Oh crap, I realize, they’re waiting for me.

All the things I’ve been considering fly out of my brain. Instead I think of all the things I can’t tell them, like I can speak any language on Earth fluently. I have wings that appear when I ask them to, and I’m supposed to be able to fly, but I suck at it. I’m a natural blonde. I have an impeccable sense of direction, which I think is supposed to help with the flying thing, but it doesn’t. Oh, and I’m here on a mission to save Kay’s boyfriend.