Carrie Jones - Need

Devyn nods. "Yep. But Issie moved up here from Portland."

"In first grade," I remember.

Issie laughs and points at Devyn with her carrot stick. "I already told her."

She yawns a ferocious yawn-I can see down to her tonsils-and stretches her arms over her head.

Devyn reaches over and covers lssie's mouth as she yawns. "I wonder where Nick is?"

I must have made some sort of frightened face because Devyn explains, "Nick's cool. He just has this weird protector thing going on."

I open up my sandwich. The lettuce is limp against the bread. I shut it again and twirl the string on my finger.

"Do you have an Amnesty International chapter here?" I ask, changing the subject. I wipe my mouth and pluck a cucumber out of my sandwich.

"I have always wanted an Amnesty chapter. Are you in Amnesty?" lssie pops up. She's been staring at her pizza slice, picking off the pepperoni. Devyn scoops them off her plate and gobbles them down. She smiles at him. "He always does that. He's so into protein. He eats raw meat."

"Like sushi?" I ask.

"Yeah, like sushi…," Issie's voice trails off.

"Some people are afraid of fish. It's called ichthyophobia," I say, and then cover my mouth with my hand. I try not to give people useless phobia information, but Devyn is into it.

"Hey, that's better than ideophobia," he says.

My hands drop down. "You know what ideophobia is?"

lssie answers for him. "Devyn knows everything about phobias and mental conditions."

"My parents are psychiatrists," he explains. "Ideophobia is the fear of ideas."

"Duh, even I could get that one." lssie wiggles her nose at him "But anyway, about Amnesty. We should start a chapter, shouldn't we, Devyn?"

He nods and wipes the pepperoni grease off his fingers.

Life here could be okay after all, really, if it weren't so cold.

Then Devyn tenses up, a low sound comes from the bottom of his throat, almost like a whimper. Issie puts her hand on his arm.

"Is?" he says quietly. She doesn't answer.

When I follow her gaze out the big cafeteria windows, I see what it is that's freaking him out At the edge of the woods there's a man.

"Crap," I say. lssie snaps out of it. "You know him?"

She and Devyn both focus their attention on me. I try to shrink myself down even more. I'd like to stare back at them, but I'm too busy watching the man lift his arm and point, point into the cafeteria, at us, at me.

"He's pointing at me," Devyn says, almost curling up into himself. Fear changes his voice into something frozen and brittle, lssie grabs at him. "He's pointing at me, Is. Oh God…"

"No. He's pointing at me," I say, muscles tensing. "Jesus. Who the hell is that?"

A dog hurtles across the snowy field toward the guy. At the same time, I jump up and start toward the fire-exit door, smashing past people carrying green lunch trays and Cokes, flying by Megan and her little posse all drinking water. I push the big metal handle of the door open. An alarm sounds. Like I care.

"Miss! Miss!" Some random teacher hauls me back inside, whirling me around and spitting in my face as he talks. "What do you think you're doing?"

lssie and Devyn's mouths are hanging wide open.

"I, urn, I was feeling a little claustrophobic," I lie. "I get lightheaded."

"Mr. Marr… she has sugar issues," lssie interrupts.

"That's not her only issue," Megan snarks at her table. People laugh. I ignore them because the man outside has gone, vanished into the woods or something. The dog is gone too.

Issie keeps going, keeps explaining. "Her grandmother told me. Her grandmother is Betty. You know Betty. She works for Downcast Ambulance."

I flash her a thank-you look.

Mr. Marr's got the comb-over thing that some bald men try to pull off. It flaps in the wind. He slams the door shut. "Well, you better go get some sugar then, miss."

Issie brings me back to the table. Once I sit down, pretend to take some sugar via a caffeinated cola beverage, and Mr. Marr no longer stares, she goes, "Why did you do that?"

I shrug, "He's been following me."

"He's been following you?" Devyn says. "The man outside?

Are you sure?"

"I know it sounds weird." I'm all flustered, folding my napkin into smaller and smaller squares. "I swear it's true, though. I saw him in Charleston. I saw him at the airport. And now he's here. Something is seriously going on. It is not normal, This… this is not normal."

Devyn shakes his head. "That can't be good," "What do you mean?"

The bell rings. Issie stands up, but Devyn doesn't push away from the table. "Let me do a little research on that, okay? Then we'll talk."

I stand up. "What? Do you think he's a serial killer or some kind of stalker or something?" Devyn nods slowly.

"It makes no sense. I don't know why he'd be where I am You don't think this is connected to that boy who went missing, do you?" I stare at the top of his head. His hair swirls around like a whirlpool. But it's his eyes that get me. It's like he's holding something back. "You thought he was pointing at you."

A muscle twitches in his cheek. His head turns away, just a little bit. "I guess I was wrong."

"You were scared."

He faces me again. His eyes flash like he's recognizing something. "So were you."

I spend the rest of the day looking out windows, searching for the man. Every class I stare into the woods, watch snow fall off tree limbs, but I don't see him. I'm so psyched out that just getting up from a chair makes my heart beat fast, like I've been running. So when someone's hand clomps down on my shoulder in the hall right when I'm putting stuff in my locker, I whirl around and scream.

The coach jumps back. His yellow-tinted glasses slip on his nose. "Zara? It's Zara, right?"

"Uh-huh."

"You jumpy? Did I scare you?" He says things bullet-fast, which does not seem like the Maine way.

"Sorry."

His hand waves away my words. "Whatever. Listen. I know there's not much time left in the season, but I thought you might want to join."

I rub my elbow. "Join?"

"Cross-country."

People meander by. They stare at us. Face after face that I don't recognize. "Yeah, I'll join. That would be great."

"Don't smile too big." He laughs and points at my mouth. "Bugs'll get in there."

I clamp my jaws shut as he coach-punches me in the shoulder.

"Just kidding." He laughs again. "See you tomorrow, kid."

"Cool!" I manage to say once he's halfway down the hall, his buzz-cut head almost lost in a mass of fully haired Mainers. I yell, "Thanks!"

He sticks his arm up in the air and gives me a thumbs-up right when my cell phone rings. I check out the display, momentarily psyched that someone's already calling me. It's my mom.

"Everything going okay?" she asks.

I stare into my bland gray locker, totally unlike everyone else's locker. Those are all decorated, lssie's is full of Hello Kitty stuff.

"Yep."

"Good."

Someone in the hall yells for Megan.

"Make friends yet?"

I grab some books, not paying attention to what I really need. "Yep."

Silence on the phone.

Then she says, "You were always good at making friends, so outgoing," I jostle the books around. One falls open. The pages bend. I yank it back up.

"I'm doing cross-country," I say. "It's almost over. And then track."

"Indoor?"

"Of course."

More silence.

"I miss you," she finally says. lssie comes up next to me. I smile at lssie and say into the phone, "Then you shouldn't have sent me away."

I click it off and guilt pulls my stomach into all sorts of weird shapes.

"It was my mom," I tell Issie as she walks me out to my Subaru. She pretty much bounces the entire way.

"She must miss you."

"I guess."

"You mad at her for sending you up here into the Arctic?" she asks as she pushes the school's big glass front door open. A wind blasts us, blowing snow off the roof and into our faces.