Charlaine Harris - An Apple for the Creature

“Where is the exam room?” I asked. My heart was racing now.

“Didn’t bother to read that either, I see,” he said, looking down at me as if I were a hopeless case. “Not a good start, Miss Weinstein. Not what we expect here. It’s room six hundred and sixty-six. Off you go then. Hurry.”

He pushed open a door for me and I stepped through into a long hallway. It was dark and dingy, lined with lockers and with doors spaced at intervals along either side. From behind these doors came the occasional murmur of voices. But the hallway was deserted. Nobody to ask where I should go. Where the hell was I anyway? I tried to remember but my brain remained fuzzy. My nose twitched at the familiar smells—chalk and books and old sweaty socks and food left to go bad in forgotten lunch bags.

“High school!” I said out loud. That’s where I was. I was in a high school, but certainly not my own. My school was all glass and brightly lit hallways with murals on the walls. This one hadn’t had a paint job in years, nor had a janitor been around with a broom for decades, judging by the drifts of trash in the corners. I stopped walking. So what was I doing here? Why couldn’t I remember? The word accident formed itself at the back of my consciousness. Something to do with an accident. That was it—I’d been in the hospital. A bad accident, obviously, since I appeared to have lost my memory. Perhaps my parents had decided to send me to another school until I could catch up with the work I had missed. Perhaps I was only here to take an exam I had missed—the SATs? A college entrance exam? But wait—hadn’t I already taken my SATs? Or had that just been a practice test?

My stomach had tied itself into knots at the mention of the word exam . I couldn’t be late for an exam, whatever it was. I broke into a run, feeling my shoes, which were somehow too big at the heels, slipping off as I ran. Why was I wearing heavy, unfashionable shoes and not my usual heels? I tossed that thought from my mind. The only thing that mattered at this moment was to find the exam room and be on time.

I was never late for anything. I always aced exams. Honor student. Class president, that was me. And whatever this exam was, I’d ace it and get back to my own school and my old life because I sure as hell wasn’t staying in a dump like this. I almost skidded on a tossed banana peel. A door opened and a boy came out. Before I could ask him where I’d find the exam room he glanced in both directions, then took off at a run down the hall and disappeared into the gloom through more double doors at the other end. I glanced up as I saw a movement to my right. A girl was walking beside me—a dumpy, overweight girl with an awful haircut, an atrocious hand-knitted purple sweater and a long droopy skirt. Honestly, how could some people be so clueless about fashion sense? Didn’t she realize her clothes made her look like a pathetic, sagging balloon? No wonder she was sneaking along, cutting class. I would, too, if I looked like that.

I lifted my hand to brush my hair from my face and the girl did the same thing at the same time. I took a step forward and she had vanished. I stopped, stepped backward and she appeared again, looking at me with a puzzled expression.

“Wait,” I said and I saw her mouth move in sync with mine. Cautiously I lifted one hand, and to my horror she did the same. Was she making fun of me or what?

“Listen, you,” I said and took a threatening step toward her. She did the same. I froze as I realized I was staring into a mirror. This dumpy, clueless, disgusting person had to be me. I looked down and saw this was true. I was wearing a purple hand-knitted sweater and a long shapeless skirt. And as I touched the rough yarn of the sweater I remembered my mother making it for me. She was always knitting me things until I told her that there was no way I was ever going to be seen dead in something she made for me again. But that was after Sally Ann helped me lose weight and taught me how to dress.

So why had I gone back to looking like this? When had I put on all this weight I’d taken all that trouble to lose? And why wasn’t I even bothering to wear makeup? The accident—I thought. It must have been a really bad accident and I must have been in the hospital for a while and put on weight while I was there and my old clothes were the only things that would fit me. But would I ever have left the house willingly looking like this? I tried to remember getting ready this morning, eating breakfast, driving or taking a school bus, but no memories would come. I really was in a bad way, but I was sure of one thing: when I got home tonight I was going to burn these icky clothes and go on a crash diet until I looked like myself again.

Then I remembered the examination. That was more important right now than worrying about the way I was dressed. I peered through the half darkness to see if the rooms were numbered, but they were not. How was I supposed to find the six hundred hall if I didn’t know where I was now?

Simple, I thought. I’d find the office and have someone show me the way. And if I was late for the exam, they’d understand that I was new. At least I could make myself a bit more presentable before anyone saw me. I could slick back my hair and roll up that long skirt and perhaps I was wearing a T-shirt under the sweater. I ducked into a girls’ bathroom at the end of the hall and coughed as the smell of smoke met me. The air was so thick with smoke that the lighting created a red haze through which the shape of the sinks and the stalls beyond were only indistinct shapes. Then I saw that I wasn’t alone. Four girls, dressed in black, were lounging against the basins, smoking. They were all in tight, tight jeans and black T-shirts with skulls and similar scary images on them. They looked up with cold, predatory eyes as I came in. As the biggest one, wearing a studded leather jacket, turned to me, a trick of the reddish shadows almost made it look as if she had a tail. I gasped.

“Well, look what the cat just brought in,” she said. Two others straightened up.

“What do you think you’re doing, fatso scum?” The one in the studded jacket stepped right in front of me and blew smoke in my face. “Are you totally clueless? Don’t you know that this is the GothChix bathroom? Nobody else comes in here, not if they know what’s good for them. The last stupid girl said she really had to go, so could she possibly use the toilet. And you know—we let her. Well, actually we flushed her head down the toilet. And she was so scared she wet herself, remember?”

She looked to her friends for confirmation and they nodded, grinning.

“But her head wasn’t quite as round as yours. Yours would probably get stuck and the janitor would have to come and get you out.”

“Or she’d have to walk around with a toilet on her head all day,” someone else commented. “I’d like to see that.”

The other girls laughed.

“Wanna try?” She moved closer again.

“Look, I’m sorry,” I said, holding up my hands in front of me as if to ward off a blow. “I didn’t know. I’m new here. I don’t belong.”

“She’s right about that. She belongs at a bag ladies’ convention,” one of the other girls said. She gave me a shove, sending me sprawling into the big girl. The studs on that jacket dug into my cheek and I gave a cry of pain. They laughed again.

“What’s your name, bag lady?” she asked.

“It’s Amy. Amy Weinstein.”

“We won’t forget it, Amy Weinstein. We don’t like the look of you. You better watch yourself.”

Some of my innate spunk was resurfacing. “You can’t talk to me like that. I’ll report you to the principal.”

For some reason this made them roar with laughter. “Oh, that’s a good one,” one of the girls said, wiping her eyes.