Cynthia Hand - Unearthly

I clear my throat. “So I’m Clara Gardner, and I moved here from California.”

The other students snicker as a guy across the circle raises his hand.

“That’s one of Mr. Lovett’s unique facts,” said Mr. Phibbs, “only you weren’t here when he said it. You’ll find that there are quite a few students here who have migrated from the Golden State.”

“Okay, well, let me try again.” Specificity is obviously the key here. “I moved here from California about a week ago, because I heard such great things about the fudge.”

The class laughs, even Kay, who seems pleased. I suddenly feel like a stand-up comedian who’s just told the opening bit. But anything’s better than being known as the redheaded dorkina who passed out in the middle of the hall after third period. So jokes it will be.

“Birds are weirdly attracted to me,” I continue. “They kind of stalk me wherever I go.”

This is true. My current theory about this is because they smell my feathers, although it’s impossible to know for sure.

“Are you raising your hand, Angela?” asks Mr. Phibbs.

Startled, I glance to my right, where a raven-haired girl in a violet-colored tunic dress over black leggings is quickly lowering her hand.

“No, just stretching,” she says casually, looking at me with grave amber eyes. “I like the bird thing, though. That’s funny.”

But nobody’s laughing this time. They’re staring at me. I swallow.

“Okay, one more, right?” I say a little desperately. “My mom is a computer programmer, and my dad is a physics professor at NYU, which probably means that I should be good at math.” I make a pained face. The idea that I can’t do math is bogus of course. I’m good at math. It’s a language after all, which is why Mom understands the way computers talk to one another without having to work at it. And probably why she was attracted to Dad to begin with, who’s like a human calculator even without a drop of angel blood running through his veins. Jeffrey and I both find it ridiculously easy.

This doesn’t get a laugh, either, just a pity chuckle from Wendy. I’m apparently not cut out to be a stand-up comedian.

“Thank you, Clara,” says Mr. Phibbs.

The last student to name her three things is the black-haired girl who looked at me so attentively when I mentioned the weird thing with the birds. Her name, she says, is Angela Zerbino. She tucks her side-swept bangs behind her ear and lists her three unique things quickly.

“My mother owns the Pink Garter. I’ve never met my father. And I’m a poet.”

Another awkward silence. She looks around the circle like she’s daring someone to challenge her. Nobody meets her eyes.

“Good,” says Mr. Phibbs, clearing his throat. He peruses his notes. “Now we know each other better. But how do people really get to know each other? Is it with facts, the specifics about ourselves that distinguish us from the other six and a half billion people on this planet? Is it our brains that make us different, the way each person is like a computer programmed with a different mix of software, memories, habits, and genetic makeup? Is it what we do, the actions we take? What would your three things have been, I wonder, if I’d told you to name the most defining actions you have taken in your life?”

I see a flash of the fire in my mind’s eye.

“This spring we’ll be spending a lot of time discussing what it is to be unique,”

continues Mr. Phibbs. He stands and hobbles over to the small table at the back of the room, where he picks up a stack of books and begins to pass them out.

“Our first book of the semester,” he says.

Frankenstein .

“It’s alive!” yells the guy with the pink lady on his snowboard, holding up his book as if he expects it to be struck by lightning. Kay Patterson rolls her eyes

“Ah, you’re channeling Dr. Frankenstein already.” Mr. Phibbs turns to the whiteboard and writes the name Mary Shelley in black marker, along with the year 1817. “This book was written by a woman not much older than you are now, who was reflecting on the battle between science and the natural world.”

He launches into a lecture about Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the impact his ideas had on art and literature at the time that Mary Shelley was writing. I try not to stare at Kay Patterson. I wonder what kind of girl she is, to snag a guy like Christian. And then, since I don’t know anything about him other than what the back of his head looks like, and that he likes to rescue girls who pass out in the hall, I wonder what kind of guy Christian is.

I realize that I’m chewing on my pencil eraser. I put my pencil down.

“Mary Shelley wanted to explore what it is that makes us human,” Mr. Phibbs concludes. He glances over at me, meets my eyes like he knows I haven’t been listening to a thing he’s said for the past ten minutes, then looks away.

“I guess we’ll find out,” he says as he holds up the book, and then the bell rings.

“You can sit at my table for lunch, if you want,” Wendy offers as we’re leaving the classroom. “Did you pack your lunch? Or were you planning to go off campus?”

“No, I thought I’d get something here.”

“Well, I think today it’s chicken-fried steak.” I make a face. “But you can always get pizza, or a peanut butter sandwich. Those are the JHHS staples.”

“Healthy.”

I shuffle through the line to get my food and follow Wendy over to her table, where a bunch of nearly identical-looking girls peer up at me expectantly. Wendy rattles off their names: Lindsey, Emma, and Audrey. They seem friendly enough. Definitely not pretty people, all wearing T-shirts and jeans, braids and ponytails, not a lot of makeup. But nice. Normal.

“So, you’re like a group?” I ask as I sit down.

Wendy laughs.

“We call ourselves the Invisibles.”

“Oh.,” I said, unsure of whether she’s joking or how to respond.

“We’re not freaks or geeks,” says Lindsey, Emma, or Audrey, I can’t tell which.

“We’re just, well, you know, invisible .”

“Invisible to—”

“The popular people,” says Wendy. “They don’t see us.”

Great. I fit right in with the Invisibles.

Across the cafeteria I catch a glimpse of Jeffrey sitting with a bunch of guys in letterman jackets. A little blond girl is gazing up at him adoringly. He says something.

Everybody at his table laughs.

Unbelievable. In less than one day, he’s Mr. Popular.

Someone pulls a chair up next to me. I turn. There is Christian, straddling the chair.

For a moment all I can focus on is his green eyes. Maybe I’m not so invisible after all.

“So I hear you’re from California,” he says.

“Yes,” I murmur, hurrying to chew and swallow a bite of peanut butter sandwich. The room is quieter now. The girls at the Invisibles table are gazing at him with wide eyes, as if he’s never crossed into their territory before. As a matter of fact, pretty much everyone in the cafeteria is looking at us, a curious and almost predatory stare.

I take a quick sip of milk and give him what I hope is a food-free smile.

“We moved here from Mountain View. That’s south of San Francisco,” I manage.

“I was born in L.A. We lived there until I was five, although I don’t really remember much.”

“Nice.” My mind races for the right response to this information, some way to acknowledge this amazing thing we have in common. But I’ve got nothing. Nothing.

The most I can come up with is a nervous giggle. A giggle , for crying out loud.

“I’m Christian,” he says suavely. “I didn’t get the chance to introduce myself before.”